


Tinker, Planner, Soldier, Spy

by AppleSharon



Series: Our Kind of Traitor (Reeve Tuesti) [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 23,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23610745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleSharon/pseuds/AppleSharon
Summary: Before Reeve Tuesti led the World Regenesis Organization, he was a traitor.Before he was a traitor, he was a spy.Before he was a spy, he was the Head of Urban Development at the Shinra Electric Power Company.Before that, he developed Shinra's standard mako reactor at 17.Before all of that, he was simply another precocious child.This is the story of Reeve Tuesti.
Series: Our Kind of Traitor (Reeve Tuesti) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730203
Comments: 43
Kudos: 70





	1. Prelude I (The Chocobo Song)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! To all two people who are going to actually read this, telling a Reeve Tuesti epic has long been a vanity project of mine and there's no time like the present (with Remake recently out) to tell his story. This is going to be long, involved, and detail-oriented.
> 
> I'm going to remain as faithful to the Final Fantasy VII canon as I can. 
> 
> Spoilers for all Final Fantasy VII-related media (just to be safe).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Dad’ll be home!” Reeve crowed. He sidled up to her with a smirk. “You tap an’ e’s home in an hour.”_
> 
> _Ruvie hadn’t realized she did this. Of course Reeve had. He was a smart boy, smarter than she had expected she would admit after a few drinks with the neighbourhood women. The wind chime in the window let out a faint tinkling sound. It hadn’t moved all day and the heat had become more oppressive. She removed her glasses briefly and rubbed her temples to stave off an oncoming headache. Perhaps it would rain soon. Ruvie hoped that the swamps between here and the mines wouldn’t flood. Marco wouldn’t come home for weeks if that happened._

“Chocobo Song!”

Ruvie Tuesti looked up from her newspaper. She had been absentmindedly tapping her fingers against the table, reading the newspaper to distract herself from the heat. It had been an unusually hot spring in the grasslands. A sack of groceries leaned against her knee. She should have put them away a while ago, before the heat and tinny song from their scratchy speakers has washed over her with a comfortable laziness. Shinra had just broken ground on a city in the grasslands and Ruvie had become absorbed in reading what she could about the construction. Perhaps it would mean more work for Marco. 

“Ma! I’m right?”

Reeve pouted at her from across the table and pointed at her hands. He put his own on the table and tapped out a similar sequence.

“’S the Chocobo Song!”

He puffed out his chest with confidence. Ruvie couldn’t help but smile. She nodded.

“It’s.”

“It’s!” he replied with glee.

She placed emphasis on certain words with a continuous wish that Reeve would learn how to enunciate properly. Kalm’s school was small and Ruvie often found herself subconsciously scanning the papers and old television in the centre of town for some sort of miracle, one that would allow her to send Reeve to Shinra Academy in Junon for the chance at a proper education. 

“Dad’ll be home!” Reeve crowed. He sidled up to her with a smirk. “You tap an’ e’s home in an hour.”

Ruvie hadn’t realized she did this. Of course Reeve had. He was a smart boy, smarter than she had expected she would admit after a few drinks with the neighbourhood women. The wind chime in the window let out a faint tinkling sound. It hadn’t moved all day and the heat had become more oppressive. She removed her glasses briefly and rubbed her temples to stave off an oncoming headache. Perhaps it would rain soon. Ruvie hoped that the swamps between here and the mines wouldn’t flood. Marco wouldn’t come home for weeks if that happened. 

“C’mon Reeve, let’s put away the groceries.”

Reeve insisted that they set up an assembly line for “‘ficiency” which was the latest overused word in the four year-old’s vocabulary. He had learned it, he told her proudly, from Bridget’s older brother Hadrian. With each item she placed in his hands, Reeve sounded out the name. 

“Pi-kled ra-dish,”

“Pickled.” 

They were a bright yellow and Reeve wrinkled his nose at the sharp smell. She arranged half of them in a semi-circle on a plate and handed it to him. 

“Take these over to Ma Lauria, okay?”

“Ma Lauria’s scary,” Reeve whispered, looking around as if the squat older woman was somehow peering over his shoulder. Ruvie fought back a laugh. Ma Lauria was gruff and loud but the most kindhearted woman in their group.

“I’ll tell you a secret about her,” she whispered. 

“If you make nice with her, she’ll protect you for life,” Ruvie said solemnly. 

It was a truth exaggerated for childlike emphasis. When the Tuesti’s had moved to town with no money and Marco’s job days away at the mythril mines, Ma Lauria had showed up on Ruvie’s doorstep the first day with a coarse, “‘ere!” while shoving a large bag of rice into her arms. After Ma Lauria’s visit the other neighborhood women, as if they had been waiting for their leader to make the first move, had showed up in droves with food, spare baby clothes, and discarded toys from when their children were babies. 

Reeve looked at her, squinting suspiciously. 

“Just go!” she said, pushing him out the door with a quick tap between his shoulder blades. He was bonier than Ruvie would have liked him to be with shaggy black hair that fell past his shoulders. She should cut it soon.

“Ask Aubrey if her mom wants some too!” she called out the door after him. 

“kayyyyyy!”

***

Marco returned that evening. He filled the house with a booming laugh, lifting Reeve up onto his shoulders and placing his hardhat on his son’s head. Reeve cackled, shrieking with joy as the construction helmet fell across his entire head. As he twirled Reeve around, Marco winked at Ruvie, full of promises for later that night. Ruvie blushed in spite of herself.

Removing the hardhat from Reeve’s head, Marco traced Reeve’s stubby fingertips through the fine green dust. It glittered on his cheeks and hands. 

“Can ye read it kiddo?” Marco asked, tapping on a piece of worn adhesive taped across the back. 

“Mar-co-ni Tu-est-i,” Reeve sounded out. His accent dragged over their family name. 

“E’s so smart,” she wept later that night when Reeve was sound asleep in the corner of the room. Marco buried her face in his chest and stroked her hair. Ruvie never bothered to perfect her speech if Reeve wasn’t around. 

“Send ‘im to Junon,” Marco said. “I’ll find a way to pay fer it.”

She didn’t look back to see the wide eyes of Reeve, peeking over from his corner bedroll.


	2. Prelude II (They build buildings)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Electric,” Ruvie said. She enunciated as crisply as she could, instructing a still Reeve who had not stopped squinting at the same page for over a minute. She moved her index finger across the page, leaving a glittering trail of mythril dust. The print on the page blurred into the thin sheet of paper, smearing ink onto her fingers._
> 
> _“ShinRa Electric Power Company.”_
> 
> _“Shin-ra ‘lectric Power Company.” Reeve dutifully copied her, starting at a diagram of the proposed city below the fold of the front page._

Reeve played in Marco’s hardhat the next afternoon while Marco went out to do the shopping in town. It drooped down over the bridge of his nose, longer than his shaggy bangs that hung in his eyes. 

The next day, Ruvie sat Reeve down at the table. She lifted Marco’s hat from his head, scrubbing her fingers across Reeve’s cheeks until they were red and raw. The mythril dust was shimmered a bright green on her fingertips.

“Ow! Ma stop!”

“That’s what you get for playing in dad’s helmet,” she said. Reeve pouted and grabbed yesterday’s newspaper off of the table. 

“Shin-ra…”

He trailed off, squinting furiously at the page as if that would help him understand the next word. She didn’t know exactly how much Reeve understood, or if he simply repeated what he heard from the older neighbourhood kids like Hadrian. The new ShinRa logo was everywhere in town, papered to the stone bridge and town centre. ShinRa was building a city in the grasslands above the town of Midgar. They were recruiting construction workers, builders, architects, and scientists to help with the project, which seemed unnecessarily large to Ruvie.

“The mine’ll be involved summhow,” Marco had said the previous night. He whispered it over Reeve, who was sandwiched between his parents in their bedroll. 

“S’where the money’ll come from.”

“Electric,” Ruvie said. She enunciated as crisply as she could, instructing a still Reeve who had not stopped squinting at the same page for over a minute. She moved her index finger across the page, leaving a glittering trail of mythril dust. The print on the page blurred into the thin sheet of paper, smearing ink onto her fingers.

“ShinRa Electric Power Company.”

“Shin-ra ‘lectric Power Company.” Reeve dutifully copied her, starting at a diagram of the proposed city below the fold of the front page.

“The posters!”

Ruvie nodded. “Yes, like the posters.”

“Hadrian, he says that his da’s going to help ‘an’s goin’ to be huge! Like the drawings! Is da-d gonna help too?” Reeve's words blended together, although Ruvie smiled at his effort.

“Going to,” she corrected him as she brushed the knots and mythril dust from his hair. 

“But how?” Reeve whispered this to Ruvie as if it was the greatest secret he had. “How’ll it stand?” She followed Reeve’s eyes to a schematic at the bottom. It looked like a giant mushroom, with a large top section floating in the sky. Reeve often asked questions that Ruvie couldn’t answer, like how to fix the well at the centre of town or what made the buggies that visitors parked on the outskirts seem to float above the ground.

“I don’t know, Reeve. What do you think?”

Reeve frowned, holding the newspaper so the page was brushing against his nose. She rose and pulled a pair of scissors out from a nearby drawer, gathering her apron that was hanging off of the small oven door handle. Reeve continued to glare at the diagram as if staring it down would reveal the inner workings of its proposed architecture. Stifling a laugh, Ruvie arranged her apron on the floor and sat down behind Reeve again. 

“Stay still, I’m going to cut your hair.”

He usually would have squirmed away at this. Hadrian and the other older boys in town kept their hair long and Reeve was intent on emulating them as much as possible. 

“Doesn’t make sense,” Reeve pouted. Ruvie reached forward for a section of his hair but Reeve jerked out of her grasp, lunging for a pencil under the table.

“Sit. Still.” 

Reeve sat up straight, his arm tapping the pencil against the diagram. 

“M’thinking.”

“Think while staying still.”

Ruvie slowly began to cut. As black locks of his hair fell onto her apron, Reeve scribbled furiously across another section of the newspaper, copying the Midgar plan proposal. His drawing quickly obscured another article, detailing a scientific discovery of a biologist named Gast Faremis. A photograph of a moustached man with dark glasses smiled from underneath Reeve's drawing. It was something to do with mako energy. Mako was going to be the primary energy source of the new Midgar project. She hoped that, once the city was built, the stability of their power supply at home would improve. The electricity flickered on and off frequently, regardless of whether they paid their bills on time or not. She had overheard in town that the ShinRa Headquarters in Junon ran on mako energy and that Junon was one of the greatest cities in the world, with lights that never went out. 

“In pieces,” Reeve mumbled under his breath. He drew a round circle that looked like a bicycle wheel. “Se-pa-rate.” She nodded seriously, as if Reeve was presenting this to her directly, humming a song as she finished trimming Reeve’s hair.

_”They build buildings oh_

_They build buildings oh_

_They build buildings so tall these days”_

“Like this!” Reeve crowed, waving the paper in front of her face with glee. “You see?” 

He pointed at the bicycle wheel. She nodded again, brushing stray hair from his neck onto the floor. It was growing hot in the apartment again, and the more stubborn locks of hair had stuck to the sweat on Reeve’s neck and back. 

_”They build buildings so tall these days,”_ he sung carefully, remembering to enunciate his words. Ruvie smiled.

“That’s what you want? To build buildings?”

Reeve nodded furiously, pointing at a black and white photograph of the Junon skyline on another page of the paper.

“Like this!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These first few chapters are really short prequel snapshots into Reeve's early childhood. There will be one more prelude and then chapter length will increase as Reeve grows older. Thanks to anyone who reads this. As I've said before, it's a giant vanity project that I don't expect to get much attention, but I'm really grateful to anyone who takes the time.
> 
> The song lyrics that Ruvie sings are from a Regina Spektor song called "Buildings."


	3. Prelude III (Overheard)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Ma sounded different sometimes when she went into town, and even when it was just the two of them at home. It was really only at night, with dad, when she sounded like the other people in town. Reeve didn’t understand this either._
> 
> “Send ‘im to Junon. I’ll find a way to pay fer it."
> 
> _Sometimes they would forget Reeve was there at all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends the last of the prelude chapters. After this, chapters will be a lot longer and more involved.

Reeve didn’t mean to overhear what adults said. They said it so loudly in front of him, he couldn’t help but hear it. When he felt guilty enough about it, he pressed his hands over his ears when his parents were talking. 

_“E’s so smart.”_

Ma was crying when she said this. Reeve didn’t understand why. Being smart was a good thing. 

Earlier that day they had gone to the market. Reeve had looked around for Hadrian and Bridget, shielding his eyes from the harsh noon sun. Hadrian was still in school. Bridget was by the well in the town centre. Reeve didn’t understand some things about the well but he wanted to learn. The well was old with a metal crank on the side that he turned to try and make the bucket come up from the hole but it never did. 

Ma had told him not to play near it because he might fall in, but Reeve didn’t want to climb into it. He wanted to turn the handle on the side. It never felt heavy enough to bring up any water and he thought sometimes that it was broken and maybe if he could just go to school he could learn how to fix it and then everyone would have water instead of Ma having to go to the swamps. Sometimes their faucet would run clear but if it didn’t Ma would leave him with Ma Lauria and go out to the swamps. Then at night they would boil water and store it for later.

“What a wee smart boy!” One of the women talking to Ma said. “E’ll be starting school then soon?”

Reeve couldn’t wait until he could go to school. He eagerly rocked back and forth on his heels, digging them into the cobblestones and dirt, smiling at the thought of it. 

“Yes!” Reeve beamed up at the red-haired woman, who rewarded his enthusiasm with a smile and a laugh. 

“If only my children were as excited about goin’ to school as ye are.”

“Go run and play with Bridget, Reeve,” Ma said. This meant that she wanted to talk about grown-up things without him. Her hand was firm on his back as she pushed him towards the centre of town.

“When does Marco come home?” Reeve heard the woman ask as he walked away. 

Ma sounded different sometimes when she went into town, and even when it was just the two of them at home. It was really only at night, with dad, when she sounded like the other people in town. Reeve didn’t understand this either.

_“Send ‘im to Junon. I’ll find a way to pay fer it.”_

Sometimes they would forget Reeve was there at all.

***

Four years later, Reeve came home from school with an armful of books he had borrowed from his teacher, a candy bar from Aubrey that he had traded away his hard-boiled egg for, and a perfectly-scored spelling test. 

Ma was crying over the table, a crumpled piece of paper and neatly-torn envelope in hand. When she turned and saw Reeve gingerly approaching she swept him up in a fierce hug. 

“Ma! I can’t breathe!” But she wasn’t listening and cried wet tears into her arm as it wrapped around Reeve’s shoulders.

“You did it,” she said between sobs. “You’re going to Junon for school.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Keysmash* Why are kids so difficult to WRITE?


	4. To Junon (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“But then where is the power coming from? And why a plate when there’s a city already there? How will they move everyone up? And why is everything split like this? Are they going to have the offices as a power plant? Or maybe there’s a secret mako fountain! Did you know that ShinRa is going to try to get energy from mako?”_
> 
> _Ma Lauria patted him on the head, brushing his hair back with her fingers. She was smiling, but she also looked sad. Reeve didn’t understand._
> 
> _“If anyone can do it, ShinRa can!” he said._
> 
> _“Move everyone onta the plate eh?” She made a soft, scornful noise._

Ma’s hand was cool, almost cold. Reeve squeezed it until the tips of his fingers tingled. The bones of her knuckles rubbed against Reeve’s thumb. It was painful, but he didn’t want to let go. Not until they reached the garage. 

Midgar was going to have trains that took anyone anywhere in the city after they finished plate construction. Reeve had read about it in the paper. Giant cranes dotted the Midgar horizon, moving slightly closer across the grasslands as the buildings grew taller and the city expanded outward. Every morning Reeve woke up and looked across the fields, wondering if some day, Midgar would be so big that it would swallow up Kalm and how big it would have to be to have that happen. He collected newspaper clippings and asked his teachers for other news on Midgar every day.

He knew the city was going to have eight sectors, all easily accessible by a central train that was free for everyone who lived in the city, provided they had a Midgar identification card. Reeve wondered if ShinRa would build other trains if the city was a success. Maybe one day he could travel to Junon by train.

“You’re smiling. Are ye that excited to leave?”

Reeve looked up at Ma and saw that she was also smiling. Somehow it looked sadder than any expression he had ever seen. Her voice had a soft lilt. After staring at her for a moment, Reeve realized that he could hear her accent. 

“I was thinking of trains. Do you think once Midgar is done that they’ll build more trains? Like one from Junon to Midgar? Or Midgar to Kalm?”

Ma laughed loudly, startling Reeve at the sound. 

“Never change, Reeve.” She smelled like the bread she had baked that morning and the metallic tinge of mythril dust. Reeve wrapped his arms around her tightly as she hugged him. His knapsack felt heavy. It held everything he owned, even the plush faerie cat that he hadn’t wanted to admit to Ma that he needed because he was eight years-old now, and should be over having to hold a stuffed toy at night. She had snuck it in when he wasn’t looking after he had demanded she leave it in the corner on the shelf above where his bedroll used to be.

Reeve was secretly grateful for this. He squeezed her again, smiling that his fingertips could now reach each other behind her back. Maybe he was be as tall as Dad one day. 

“You can help build the train,” she said, releasing him. “If you come back here after school.” She continued to hold his hand as they walked.

“Maybe. Trains are cool. I wonder how the one in Midgar is going to work. Do you think it will be helped by materia? Or run on mako energy? I hear they make power plants that only use mako? Do you think I’ll see one in Junon?”

She paused for a moment. Reeve looked up at her expectantly. He had read that they had built a plate in Junon, maybe as a test for Midgar. Reeve wondered if plates needed trains, or how people would get from below the plate to the top of it. 

“There’s an elevator,” she said. “But I don’t think they have a train.” Reeve pouted. 

“Maybe I’ll help build one.”

Ma laughed, squeezing his hand tightly again. 

“Maybe you will.”

Reeve had never been to the garage before and bounced on his heels with anticipation as they approached. He had begged Ma to take him so many times, but she had always said that he couldn’t go alone, and she couldn’t leave her job in town to take him. 

The buggy was so brightly-coloured that Reeve could see it from a distance. He let go of Ma’s hand immediately and broke into a run, rushing up to a bearded man who was leaning against the side of the buggy while filling it with oil from a large hose. 

“How does it work? Is it actually floating? Is it infused with materia? Is it true that they can go through rivers? What about the sea?”

“Whoa, slow down there son,” the man laughed. “I cannae answer all of yer questions but no materia, see?” He gestured at the hose.

Reeve breathed in deeply. The garage smelled like oil and metal. In one corner, Reeve could see a stacked series of mythril rods. 

“My dad mines for those!” he said, gesturing to the corner proudly. The man smiled. 

“Really now? Wanna know a secret?” He motioned for Reeve to come close, kneeling down next to the front two buggy wheels. “These’re all made of mythril see?”

The wheel axles shone with green-tinged grease around bright-blue spokes. Reeve smiled broadly at the man. He ran his index finger along the axel and it came away with a familiar mythril grittiness. 

“Are ye goin’ ta Junon?”

“Yeah! I’m going to the ShinRa Academy!” Reeve stood up ramrod straight, facing the man who was looking at him with a warm smile. “Then I’m going to come back and help build Midgar!”

“I’m sure ya will son.”

Before Reeve could respond, the man looked over his shoulder and waved. 

“Hullo Ruvie,” he said. “I shoulda known he was yer boy. Askin’ me all sorts of questions about the rig.”

“Reeve! I’ve told you not to bother people while they’re working!” Reeve opened his mouth to apologize, but the man waved his hand in the air with another smile. 

“’S no bother,” he said. “I hear he’s goin’ ta Junon and learn how ta build that giant plate they put pictures of in the news.”

Ma sighed and placed her hand on Reeve’s lower back, pushing him towards the buggy.

“Why don’t you look around for a minute while I catch up with Seany.”

“He’s a fine boy, Ruvie. You and Marco must be proud.” 

Reeve didn’t hear Ma’s response. He walked around the buggy restlessly, thinking about the plate again.

***

“It doesn’ make sense ta me, boy,” Ma Lauria said one afternoon, looking across the horizon at the cranes in the distance. There were more of them every day. 

Reeve had stopped by with a plate of Ma’s spicy bean sprouts to trade for a bit of flour and, until that moment, had been waiting to leave so he could go read a book that he had snuck home from school. 

“I thought it was just me!” Reeve reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a worn newspaper clipping. 

“They say that the office is going to be here.” He pointed at the centre of the city plans that had been published years ago. Reeve had an updated map, but he sometimes made marks to the original to keep track of his own thoughts. 

“But then where is the power coming from? And why a plate when there’s a city already there? How will they move everyone up? And why is everything split like this? Are they going to have the offices as a power plant? Or maybe there’s a secret mako fountain! Did you know that ShinRa is going to try to get energy from mako?”

Ma Lauria patted him on the head, brushing his hair back with her fingers. She was smiling, but she also looked sad. Reeve didn’t understand.

“If anyone can do it, ShinRa can!” he said. 

“Move everyone onta the plate eh?” She made a soft, scornful noise. Reeve pulled away a bit. Ma had been right about Ma Lauria, but sometimes she was still scary. 

“I’d like ta see it boy,” she said. “But I don’t know ‘bout the ShinRa. Now go home to yer ma.”

***

There were only two other people in the buggy. One was an older woman who smiled wanly at Reeve. She looked tired, but Ma had told him that pointing out these things wasn’t nice, even if it was true. The other was a tall boy, rummaging through a large knapsack. 

“Headed to the Academy?” A tall boy sat down across from Reeve. He took a loud bite of an apple, chewing loudly. Reeve didn’t recognize him from town. 

“Are you from Midgar?” He asked. The boy nodded.

Reeve leaned forward with interest. “Have you seen the plate construction? What does it look like?”

The boy frowned and shrugged, jostling in his seat as the buggy hit a bump. 

“Right now they’re just buildin’ these huge towers.” He gestured widely with his hands nearly dropping his apple. “I dunno what they’re for. There’s no plate.”

“But there will be a plate, right?”

“There’s a plate over Junon too,” the boy said, nodding again. A bit of apple dribbled out of the corners of his mouth. Reeve could hear Ma’s voice in his head, reminding him of how rude it was to chew with his mouth open, but it felt awkward telling another kid that. Another cursory glance at the boy and Reeve was certain that the boy was older, or at least larger. He didn’t want to get into a fight on his way to his first day at the academy. 

“It’s pretty big.” The boy swallowed loudly and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Maybe ShinRa just like their cities like that?” His voice trailed off into a question, as if he wasn’t sure he was correct. 

Reeve hummed. It still didn’t make sense.

“I’ve seen pictures of Junon,” he said after a pause, echoing Ma’s words. “I think they have an elevator.” 

The boy nodded. Reeve fell silent. It felt weird. Back home, he didn’t have any trouble talking to Bridget or Hadrian or Aubrey, who listened when he talked about things like the Midgar construction. Hadrian would sneak him books from school that he wasn’t supposed to read until he was older, and Aubrey would sometimes draw with him, taking notes. 

“Are ya hungry?” The boy interrupted Reeve’s thoughts, holding out another apple.  
Reeve thought about how he had only said a quick goodbye to Ma before hopping in the buggy. He wondered when he would see her or Ma Lauria or Hadrian again. 

“Yeah,” Reeve said with a polite nod. 

“I’ve got lots.” The boy threw him one, catching Reeve a bit off-guard, although he managed to catch it.

“Nice catch! I’m Huxley just so ya know.”

“Thank you. And I’m Reeve Tuesti.”

He said it shyly and formally, thinking of Ma the entire time and how she’d taught him to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again I know the audience for a fic like this is very niche, but if anyone has Reeve-focused writing prompts, I'll probably take them so feel free to leave them in comments. I really appreciate everyone who reads this.


	5. To Junon (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Huxley rolled over to face Reeve. “There’s a story in Midgar that says that the faerie cat is larger than a wolf, with a white patch just like that. They’ll steal yer soul before ya can be buried so you’ve gotta keep watch to make sure he doesn’t take you away.”_
> 
> _“Well this one doesn’t do that. He’s the king of cats,” Reeve said, hugging Cait Sith to his chest._

When Reeve was older, he was going to make sure that there was a better way to get to Junon from Midgar. He would build it himself. 

Reeve had known that the air in the mountains would be dry. Dad had warned him that the only way to Junon was through the mountains, and because of the river they had to go south first, through the swamp and near the mines, to get through. He said it would be cold and dry and dusty. 

He hadn’t warned Reeve about the nosebleeds that would persist as the buggy made its way through the mountains. When the first one came on the fifth day of their travels, Reeve had only stared at the droplets of blood spattering his trousers until the older woman in the buggy had interrupted his stunned look with a quick “here,” rushing over and pressing a handkerchief to his face. “Tip yer head back,” she had barked. 

This was the only thing she had said to the boys all trip, quickly retreating to the back of the buggy afterwards. He had tried to thank her later, but she was dozing in a corner when he approached. Based on the dark circles under her eyes, she probably didn’t get a lot of sleep often. She looked like Ma did when Dad didn’t come home on time. Reeve still didn’t know her name. 

“Why dod’t you get dese?” Reeve asked, glaring at Huxley who was pointing and laughing at the tissues Reeve had shoved into each of his nostrils. 

“Dunno,” Huxley said. He took a giant bite out of something that was either military rations or meat jerky. 

Huxley was always eating. There wasn’t a time or place where Huxley would hesitate in pulling something out of his pocket or his knapsack, which seemed to have an endless supply of apples, protein bars, and other assorted snacks of varying quality. 

Reeve had the sneaking suspicion that Huxley had stolen most of the stuff from his parents. At least that would explain why some of the food he had was amazing and others were expired tins of packed swamp fish in salt. He hadn’t asked Huxley about this because every time he thought about it, he could hear Ma’s voice in his head telling him not to be rude. 

“You’re bleedin’ real good though,” Huxley said between mouthfuls. He squinted his eyes and studied Reeve. “Did ya get ‘em at home sometimes?”

“Doh, obviously dot or I would’t be askidg.” Reeve regretted being snappish almost instantly but these nosebleeds were really annoying. 

“Weird.”

Reeve shrugged and slowly removed the tissues, crumpling them up with disgust as Huxley looked on with a bit too much interest. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Huxley said, shrugging. “It’s just cool how people’s bodies respond differently to stuff s’all.”

Reeve nodded. It was kind of interesting if he thought about it.

“You’re weird,” Reeve said. He pinched the bridge of his nose and gave an experimental sniff. When no blood dripped out, he nodded slightly. 

Huxley shrugged again. “Back atcha kid.”

“I’m only two years younger than you!”

“And ya talk like you’re 40 and rich instead of a random kid from the grasslands.”

Reeve huffed and resisted the urge to wipe his nose with his sleeve. He sniffled, flaring his nostrils to stop dried blood from caking inside. The back of his throat tasted like iron and mythril dust. 

“You’re cool though,” Huxley continued with a smile. 

“Back atcha kid,” Reeve said haughtily. 

Huxley wanted to be a biologist and he was going to the ShinRa Academy to study biology. Reeve hadn’t even had to ask Huxley about what he was going to do at the academy because within the first half hour of their trip, he had pulled out a scrapbook of newspaper clippings on his idol: a doctor named Gast Faremis. He was a man with a moustache that Reeve vaguely remembered from skimming those same headlines while looking for anything and everything on the Midgar construction project.

“Professor Gast is so cool!,” Huxley had said, shoving the book into Reeve’s lap while vibrating with excitement. Reeve was a bit put off initially, but grew used to it as the days in the buggy wore on. 

“Did you see that he discovered Jenova? She’s an Ancient. I wonder if she’s still alive? He found her in I bet we’ll learn all about her in school. Maybe Professor Gast will teach at our school!”

Huxley had been so delighted by this prospect that he had started yelling, accidentally spitting a bit of his protein bar onto Reeve. 

“Gross!”

“Sorry.” 

Wiping his cheek in disgust, Reeve noted that Huxley did not look apologetic at all.

An unintended side effect of Huxley’s hero worship was that Reeve now knew more about Professor Gast and the Cetra than he had before.

Perhaps it would help him in some of his classes. Reeve had grown progressively anxious the longer they travelled, noting that Huxley seemed to know a lot more about things than he did. Maybe the Midgar schools taught different things. He had asked Huxley many questions about the city construction, which Huxley had answered with varying degrees of interest and knowledge. It still seemed like Huxley knew more than he did and this bothered him a lot. Reeve wished he could have learned some of the same things at school. Or at least a bit more about the city itself. 

Currently, Huxley stared at Reeve’s discarded tissues with open interest.

“If I had my microscope from home, I could tell you yer blood type. Read yer fortune too if you believe in that kind of stuff.” Huxley’s tone of voice told Reeve that Huxley did not believe in that kind of stuff himself. 

“I’ll pass.”

“I’ll pass,” Huxley echoed, mocking Reeve. “Why do ya talk like you do anyway?”

Reeve shrugged. 

He didn’t know why Ma had insisted he speak the way he did, or why she had changed the way she spoke to him and others when he was around, but it made him feel ashamed of his accent, like he shouldn’t have one for some reason.

***

When they had left the mountains and the nights were clear, Seany let them sleep under the stars. He pulled out four musty sleeping bags from a storage space in the buggy’s undercarriage and handed them out one by one. Reeve wrinkled his nose at the smell, and later consulted the buggy’s technical manual that he had begged Seany to give him until the buggy driver became so annoyed that he handed it over with a, “Fine kid! Take it will ya an’ leave me be!”

These storage spaces were standard for most buggies, Reeve read, and were meant to support up to a group of ten travellers in case of an emergency. Seany hadn’t given them pillows, so Reeve shoved the manual under his knapsack and pulled out Cait Sith.

“What’s that thing?”

Reeve hugged the plush toy to his chest, half-hiding him from Huxley’s view. 

“Nothing.”

He and Huxley had arranged their sleeping bags side-by-side. The older woman was somewhere on the other side of the fields and Seany slept in the cab of the buggy to keep watch for animals. Neither of them knew anything about the stars, so Reeve and Huxley stayed up late into the night, staring and pointing and connecting the dots in their heads. 

“Doesn’t look like nothin.”

Reeve sighed. He slowly pulled out the stuffed cat from underneath him and showed it to Huxley. 

“This is Cait Sith.”

“Ah, the faerie cat? The one that eats yer souls?”

“No! Ma said he would protect me!”

Huxley rolled over to face Reeve. “There’s a story in Midgar that says that the faerie cat is larger than a wolf, with a white patch just like that. They’ll steal yer soul before ya can be buried so you’ve gotta keep watch to make sure he doesn’t take you away.”

“Well this one doesn’t do that. He’s the king of cats,” Reeve said, hugging Cait Sith to his chest. 

“Okay,” Huxley said agreeably. He didn’t say anything else for a while, so Reeve rolled over and closed his eyes, trying to go to sleep.

“Tomorrow we’ll be in Junon,” Huxley said. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. Reeve barely heard it.

“Yeah.”

“S’okay if yer scared, Reeve. We can still be friends at the Academy. I’ll tell ya all about being a scientist and what it’s like to work for Professor Gast, and you can tell me all about buildin’ stuff.”

Reeve hugged Cait Sith tighter and yawned. 

“Okay,” he said quietly.


	6. The Academy (Year 1, Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“A parking lot? But why?” The words slipped out of Reeve’s mouth before he could stop them. They were punctuated by a loud yelp as Huxley immediately elbowed him in the stomach._
> 
> _The infantryman laughed. “Not quite. This is an airport.”_
> 
> _Reeve frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters are really starting to get long now. ^ ^;

Huxley grabbed his hand immediately as the doors to the Junon undercity closed slowly, shutting out the dim sunlight from beneath the plate. The clanging sound echoed in the elevator shaft loudly. He squeezed it as the ground underneath them started to move, looking at Reeve with an odd, tight-lipped expression that Reeve couldn’t place. Reeve settled for squeezing Huxley’s hand back, like Hadrian had done the first time Reeve had peered into the Kalm well and had grown dizzy at the thought of how deep it was. 

The Junon elevator was everything that Reeve had hoped it would be and more. It also left Reeve feeling nauseous. 

“Is this what Midgar is like?” Reeve whispered. Huxley shook his head rapidly. The older boy looked like he was going to be sick from the motion of the elevator, despite having spent the past few weeks eating his way through a bumpy buggy ride. 

“I wonder if they’ll build elevators like this in Midgar?” 

“Come on you two,” their escort said. He was a member of ShinRa’s military forces — a smiling face in a loose blue uniform. 

The infantryman gestured outside of the elevator railing as the landing pad lined up with Junon’s upper level plate with a slight screeching of metal and concrete scraping against each other. It was bright, too bright after the darkness of the undercity and electric lights in the elevator shaft.

Reeve squinted and shielded his eyes from the sun with his free hand. He could hear the cries of seabirds and smelled salt in the air. Slowly, everything came into focus. It was oddly bleak and flat, jutting out from a rocky outcropping that came up against the sea. In the distance, across what had to have been hundreds of metres of concrete, there was a whirlwind of activity from cranes, rising from the undercity beaches. 

“A parking lot? But why?” The words slipped out of Reeve’s mouth before he could stop them. They were punctuated by a loud yelp as Huxley immediately elbowed him in the stomach. 

The infantryman laughed. “Not quite. This is an airport.”

Reeve frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Reeve, shut the hell up. Yer makin’ me sick.” Huxley’s voice was strained as he stumbled forward off of the elevator platform, still looking green. He hadn’t let go of Reeve’s hand the entire ride up. Reeve magnanimously decided to not comment on the swearing, although Ma would have scolded him if he’d said anything like that out loud. 

“But it doesn’t,” Reeve whispered, too tired to keep his thoughts to himself. Standing on the upper plate of Junon overwhelmed him. He closed his eyes, unsure if he was feeling the ground move ever-so-slightly, or if it was an illusion from looking out at the ocean on the horizon. 

Laughing again, the infantryman shook his head and shrugged. “I’m not sure if it makes sense or not, but this is a place for all of our aircraft, from small seaplanes to the President’s airship!”

He said this with excitement while pointing his finger up into the empty sky. For Reeve, his excitement was infectious. Even Huxley was looking less green and more interested in what was happening now that they were walking away from the elevator platform. 

“Now, let’s get you two to the academy and registered.”

Registration, Reeve quickly learned, not only involved the papers that Ma had tucked into his shirt pocket with a variety of threats of bodily harm should he lose them, but a test. Still smiling, the infantryman took their papers and presented them to the headmaster’s assistant, who thanked the infantryman with a quick bow before ushering them into a library filled with individual cubicles. It was the largest library Reeve had ever seen in his life — three entire stories all spiraling upwards in a circle with every shelf crammed full of books. 

Reeve gave Huxley’s hand one last squeeze before letting go. 

“This will be timed,” the headmaster’s assistant said. He sounded bored. Reeve wondered how many times he had administered this test. 

“Keep this in mind for the entirety of the test. You have two hours.” He led Reeve to a separate cubicle across the room from Huxley and took Reeve’s knapsack. 

The test was several pages long and involved a number of multiple-choice questions on basic maths and reading comprehension that Reeve quickly completed. What stumped him was the last page. It was almost completely blank, with five words printed at the top. 

**Write or draw your ambition.**

Reeve turned it over to make sure that there was nothing else. It seemed like a trick, or another type of test where he didn’t know the rules. He wondered if he could fail out of ShinRa Academy before he even started. 

“My ambition,” Reeve whispered. 

He thought of their inefficient path through the mythril mines and the Junon elevator that connected the undercity and the main city platform. He thought of trains. He thought of Midgar. 

Soon Reeve’s paper was filled with half-imagined schematics and diagrams. When he ran out of room for his proposed Midgar transit system based on the worn diagram he carried in his pocket, he turned the page over and sketched out what he remembered of Midgar itself. 

It still didn’t make sense to him — not without some sort of reasoning for the wheel design. He scribbled furiously, trying to make sense of it all before he felt a hand on his shoulder.  
“I said that your time was up.” 

Reeve looked up to see the headmaster’s assistant looking down at him. 

“Please wait in the hallway with the other students.” He handed Reeve his knapsack off of the floor and gestured towards a door leading out of the back of the library as he collected Reeve’s paper. Huxley was already standing nervously at the exit, still looking drawn and pale. 

“How did ya do?” he immediately asked Reeve as the two slipped into the hallway. 

Reeve shrugged. His head was still full of Midgar. 

“How much of the plate in Midgar have they started to build?”

Huxley stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “That’s what yer on about? The plate?”

“Shhhhhh!” a voice whispered loudly. “This is a library! I don’t want to get in trouble on my first day!”

Reeve looked around. It was a small back entrance with books piled seemingly at random. He hadn’t noticed anyone besides Huxley until now, but there were five other students who had to have taken the same entrance exam. A short red-haired boy and a tall blonde girl were both glaring at Huxley for his outburst.

Suddenly exhausted, Reeve sank to the floor next to one of the larger stacks of books. Huxley stuck out his tongue at the two other students before joining Reeve on the floor. 

“Beef jerky?” Huxley held out a piece towards Reeve. When Reeve shook his head and stared blankly at the floor, Huxley shrugged and stuff the entire thing in his mouth with a loud chomping noise.

For Reeve it was a comforting sound.

***

The rest of Reeve’s afternoon was a blur. After momentarily dozing off in the hallway — he was immediately jolted awake by a well-timed elbow to the stomach from Huxley — Reeve and the rest of the new students were all informed that they had passed the test and were given slips of paper with their new dormitory assignments and classes.

**Tuesti, Reeve M.**

**School of Study: School of Engineering and Architecture**

**Dormitory: B**

**Room: 812**

**Roommate(s): Song, Haneul**

Reeve’s fingers tightened around the paper. He wouldn’t be with Huxley who, upon reading his own slip, had loudly boasted to the group that he’d made it into the School of Science and Biological Research.

“This is it, Reeve! This is my first step to bein’ the next Professor Gast!” 

His statement had earned a loud snort from one of their peers, but Huxley’s excitement was infectious and soon everyone started sharing their school assignments. Reeve was the only one in the School of Engineering and Architecture. 

“But it’s exactly what ya wanted,” Huxley said, grabbing Reeve’s hand and shaking it enthusiastically. “I’m proud of ya!”

“Good luck being the next Professor Gast, Huxley,” Reeve said quietly. He pulled Huxley in for a tight hug. 

“Ah, don’ worry. I’ll call ya on the dorm PHS. And we can still eat food together in the cafeteria!”

Reeve nodded, waving goodbye as Huxley walked off with the red-haired boy and a girl with long, dark braids. 

Haneul Song was already in their shared dormitory room when Reeve entered. The dark-haired boy leapt up from his seat at Reeve’s arrival, beaming widely. 

“You must be Reeve Tuesti! They said you’d be coming in today. I’m your roommate Haneul Song! Welcome to the School of Engineering and Architecture. If there’s anything you need just ask me.” Haneul punctuated his greeting with an eager bow before grabbing Reeve’s hand and shaking it vigorously. 

Reeve already had so many questions, the first being how Haneul had known he was coming today if he had just tested into the engineering department. Maybe the test had just been a formality. 

“I’ve been really bored since my last roommate left.” Haneul continued, wrinkling his nose in thought. “He dropped out last year. I don’t think he liked engineering very much.”

“Do you like it?” Reeve asked softly. 

“Of course! I’m going right into the ShinRa army corps after school as a field engineer,” Haneul said. “I have it all planned out.”

Reeve nodded. Haneul’s energy and optimism were a bit overwhelming, especially after such a long day, but he seemed genuinely nice. 

“That’s your bed over there.” Haneul pointed at the empty bed across the room. He was seated on a messy, unmade bed that was surrounded by a variety of charts. On the wall, there was a diagram of something that looked like a tank robot. “You’ll find your academy handbook in the nightstand, and a few uniforms in the drawers under the bed. Saves space that way. This isn’t really a military school, but it also kind of is, you know?”

Nodding again, Reeve opened his nightstand drawer and picked up a small, leather-bound notebook with the old ShinRa Manufacturing logo on it. Turning it over in his hands, he wondered if he had to read this before his first day of classes. 

“Don’t worry,” Haneul said, as if he’d read Reeve’s mind. “You don’t have to memorize it or anything. Just always be in uniform unless you’re training in the training centre or hanging around the dorms."

“Training centre?”

“Yeah! You can train with all sorts of weapons or hand-to-hand combat if you want.” He paused to look Reeve up and down. “No offense but you don’t look like much of a fighter. How old are you anyway?”

Reeve shook his head. “It’s okay. I don’t want to be part of the military. I just want to build things. Also I’m eight.”

Haneul smiled. His teeth were fiercely white. “That’s what engineering is all about! I’m eleven, by the way. Seriously if you ever need any help, definitely let me know. We’re a team now, Tuesti.”

Still overwhelmed, Reeve leaned down and pulled out the drawer underneath his bed, which had multiple sets of the same outfit: a blue blazer with the updated ShinRa Electric Company logo on it, blue trousers, white shirt, and red tie. 

“The tie’s a clip-on!” Haneul crowed. He had a warm laugh and Reeve couldn’t help but smile back at him. “I guess they don’t really trust us to tie our own ties. Anyway you should try on your uniform. The washroom is over there. They don’t always get the measurements right.”

When Reeve emerged from the washroom moments later, Haneul burst out laughing. 

“Oh man, Tuesti. Wait, Reeve. Can I call you Reeve? You can call me Haneul. Anyway, that uniform does not fit you at all.”

***

A month after arriving in Junon, Reeve was called to the headmaster’s office. He had no idea why, and spent the entirety of two days before the scheduled meeting sweating nervously and unable to eat much of anything. Haneul reassured him that any disciplinary action would have been dealt with as quickly as possible, not scheduled for a meeting later in a week, but this did little to calm Reeve’s nerves. He hadn’t thought he was doing poorly in any of his classes. Reeve loved them all, even his introductory drafting study where he was visibly the worst at drawing in the entire class.

Headmaster Rosario was regarded by students and staff as a benevolent, fair leader from what Reeve had heard from other students, specifically Haneul who readily offered his opinions about everything and anything. 

Two men in dark-coloured suits nodded at Reeve as he motioned towards the closed door of the headmaster’s office, taking a deep breath before opening the large, wooden double doors. Reeve looked up and gasped. 

“S-sir.”

It wasn’t Headmaster Rosario seated behind the headmaster’s desk but President Shinra himself. Reeve clenched his fists underneath his shirt cuffs. His shirt and blazer were still too big and he hadn’t made time to get them fixed — Huxley had made a good point over a rare shared lunch the other day that Reeve was likely to grow into the uniform anyway. The two had then been distracted by the news that Professor Gast had left the ShinRa company. Huxley was particularly distraught, wondering why Professor Gast would leave so soon after his career-making discovery of the Cetra woman.

Haneul had said that he could take in Reeve’s uniform for him the day he had tried it on in their dorm room, but Reeve didn’t want to bother him about something as trivial as tailoring his blazer. Now faced with the president of the entire ShinRa Electric Power Company, Reeve desperately wished that he’d taken Haneul up on his offer. 

“Mister Tuesti,” the president said. “Please, have a seat. Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble.”

President Shinra’s eyes were stern but not unkind. He looked more amused at Reeve than angry. Reeve felt his shoulders relax slightly.

A large clock from behind the headmaster’s desk chimed loudly. Both Reeve and the president jumped at the sound

“Mister Tuesti,” President Shinra began, tapping a small manila folder on the desk. It folder was labelled “Tuesti, R.” at the top with a bright blue sticker next to Reeve’s family name. The president opened the folder and pulled out the final page of Reeve’s entrance exam.

Reeve looked down at the carpet, aimlessly tapping at a worn spot with the toes of his dress shoes. He knew that his drafting wasn’t good, but he had improved enough that his old drawings already were shamefully childish. 

“Do you remember drawing this?”

“Y-yes,” Reeve stuttered. 

“May I call you Reeve?” President Shinra asked politely as he sat down in Headmaster Rosario’s large plush chair. Reeve nodded. He was still too afraid to speak to the president properly, and internally berated himself for this fact. 

“You’re not in trouble, Reeve,” the president reminded him. “In fact, I wanted to call you in here because this is the best entry I’ve ever seen on this exam, especially from someone as young as yourself. Your file says that you’re only eight years-old?”

Reeve looked up incredulously, but couldn’t find any hint in the president’s eyes that he was lying. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Astounding. Simply astounding. No wonder my teachers here saw fit to show me this immediately. You have a remarkable talent, Reeve. I want to make sure that the ShinRa company is doing everything in its power to help foster and mold that talent for the greater good of the planet.”

“Really?” 

President Shinra smiled down at him kindly, before standing up and reaching out his hand. Reeve gripped it firmly, remembering what Haneul had told him about the importance of a strong handshake. 

“Sir! I won’t let you down!”

The president laughed. It was a low sound that shook through his entire body. “I know you won’t, Reeve. Here, I have a gift for you.”

President Shinra reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, handing it to Reeve. Wide-eyed, Reeve slowly unfolded it, revealing a detailed schematic of the Midgar construction plans. 

“I’ve heard that you have some opinions on my engineers’ design for our new headquarters in Midgar. If you see anything here that interests you, don’t hesitate to let your teachers know. They’ll make sure it gets back to me.”

He paused, studying Reeve intently.

“I expect great things from you, Reeve. I’ll be checking in on your progress myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw a thing (I'm pretty sure it was on Tumblr) re: Reeve and President Shinra that made a lot of sense and kind of expanded on that here. Basically the idea is that in Remake, the president silences him by saying "Reeve" when he's being insubordinate, as opposed to something like "Director Tuesti." There's an implication that he (at the very least) watched over Reeve's career from a really young age, which would make sense given that in order for the canonical timeline to work, Reeve would have had to develop the Shinra mako reactor as a teenager. 
> 
> Anyway, I expanded on that idea a bit here and will likely continue to explore their relationship and the effect it has on Reeve's growth.


	7. The Academy (Year 1, Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“But it’s safe?” Reeve asked before he could stop himself. Professor Wyatt smiled and nodded again before gesturing to the entire class._
> 
> _“Of course! But it is a lengthy procedure. I daresay, Mister Tuesti, it’s one you’ll likely tire of when we learn it next month.”_
> 
> _A few of his classmates giggled at this as Reeve blushed and slumped back in his seat._
> 
> _“Thank you professor,” he said._
> 
> _“Mister Tuesti, we want you to ask questions,” Professor Wyatt said with another wave of his hand. “A good engineer never stops asking whether something can be done differently or more efficiently. Now sit up straight, please.”_

Reeve was swimming. 

He’d never swam in the ocean growing up. The closest he had ever come was the well in the centre of town. He hadn’t swum in that either, but studied it as an odd curiosity. 

He supposed that they were in Junon, and therefore there was an ocean, and so he was swimming. The ocean was green. It glimmered around him, refracting light from the surface. He kicked and moved slower than he thought he would have through the water.

“Reeve,” a voice called from the surface. 

“Reeve!”

He could barely hear it underwater. Light flickered from above him but he couldn’t reach his arm up. It was too heavy.

“REEVE!” 

The voice grew louder and more insistent. He couldn’t move.

“TUESTI!”

Reeve was at his desk. He had visited the ocean last week in lower Junon, but he hadn’t swam in it. His forehead hurt and he quickly realized the reason for this was that it had been pressed into the leather spine of book on his desk. The reason he hadn’t been able to move his hand in his dream was likely because it was pinned underneath his head and neck as a makeshift pillow. His sketches for draft class were creased and crumpled underneath his other arm. 

He slowly lifted his head, cracking his neck to the side, and looked across the room. Haneul was grinning at him cheekily. 

“You have something,” Haneul said, gesturing at Reeve’s forehead in a straight line. “Right there.”

Reeve scowled and rubbed at his forehead as Haneul cackled at him from across the room. “You’re just making it worse. Check your paper to make sure you didn’t drool on your homework again.” Haneul hopped up from his seat and grabbed his blazer off of the floor. It was wrinkled beyond all hope. Haneul was going to be chastised for it by their form advisor at the very least.

“Look alive, Tuesti. I want to grab breakfast before class.”

Haneul called him “Tuesti” and “Reeve” interchangeably. Reeve had yet to figure out whether this meant something or whether his roommate was just lazy. Haneul had said that he could call him by his given name on the first day they had met, but nearly a full school term later Haneul hadn’t settled on what he wanted to call Reeve. It kept Reeve on his guard a bit since he couldn’t figure out any particular pattern or reasoning behind it. 

Everything Haneul was very bright and loud. Everyone in the school seemed to know him, or at least everyone close to their ages. Haneul was in the same year as Huxley, although they were in different programs. 

On Reeve’s first day, Haneul had immediately dragged Reeve around the school, including the training centre, although they hadn’t gone in.

“Like I said, you don’t look like a fighter, you know?”

Reeve had bristled at his new roommate’s assumption, but then Haneul had put his arm around him and whispered conspiratorily that although Reeve was only eight, he’d teach him how to fight if he wanted. Reeve didn’t really want to, but he felt a small burst of warmth at how quickly Haneul was including him in things, especially when he didn’t have to. 

That night, had Haneul taught Reeve how to tie a proper tie with a brighter red-coloured one than the clip-ons provided for their school uniforms. 

“I wear it for tests,” Haneul had said after Reeve had clumsily completed his first Windsor knot. The older boy ran his fingers down the shiny fabric. “My parents gave it to me when I made it in earlier this year. It’s not a hand-me-down from my brothers or anything.”

Reeve had hummed, leaning back onto his small bed. He had pulled the old student handbook from his nightstand with the intention of reading it but had promptly fell asleep. 

After Reeve’s first week of classes, he had decided to wake up early and do some of his catch-up work in form group before the rest of the class arrived and they went their separate ways. If he worked hard enough, he should be able to catch up to where his classmates were at, despite the fact that they were all at least a year older, like Haneul. 

“Did you hear he’s only eight?”

Reeve’s hand froze, hovering just in front of the doorknob.

“I guess he’s some genius?”

“Either that or he has rich parents that can get him into whatever, like Scarlet.”

“Doesn’t seem like it but you never know.”

“Ew I don’t want another Scarlet at this school. One’s enough.”

Reeve jumped, feeling a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see a smirking Haneul. Finger pressed to his lips in a shushing motion, Haneul walked past Reeve and—

“TUESTI!”

Reeve looked up to see Haneul’s face hovering centimetres above his own. 

“Yea?” 

“Are you okay? Your accent is coming out.” Haneul smiled but his nose wrinkled with undisguised concern.

Reeve shook his head. He then thought better of this and nodded.

“Mmm, just thinking.” 

After a pause, Haneul wordlessly handed Reeve his blazer, which had been hung with care above his bed on the wall. 

“Hey Haneul,” Reeve began. “I never thanked you for form group at the beginning of the— 

“Reeve,” Haneul interrupted, a rare frown on his face. “You know why you’re partnered with someone older than you?”

“There isn’t anyone my age.”

“Well, yeah, but also it’s so I can help you. They do this with all the new students. My roommate was older until he moved out. And I would have been shuffled around if he hadn’t moved out anyway.”

“Yea but it’s different for me, isn’t it? Because I’m only eight.” Reeve was only now starting to understand why this would make a difference to some of his classmates.

“A bit,” Haneul admitted. “But you talk like an old man anyway so people have probably stopped noticing. Unless your accent slips.”

Reeve laughed. “Huxley, one of my friends I guess. He said the same thing once.”

“I know it’s different for you,” Haneul said. “Because you’re younger. And also because the President talked to you specifically. But you’ll understand when you’re older and have a younger roommate. It’s like a test for me too, you know?”

Reeve didn’t really know, but he could understand the situation well enough, so he nodded. When he really thought about it, he didn’t mind receiving help from others. It would help him learn. He just didn’t want to be seen as the young kid who always needed help. When he opened his mouth to say this, Haneul scooped up Reeve’s books from the desk and handed them to him.

“Ugh all this mushy stuff is going to make us late. C’mon,” Haneul said, pushing Reeve out the door. 

“Does it snow where you’re from?” Haneul asked, taking a deep breath as they stepped outside for the short walk from their dormitory to the classrooms.

Reeve was sure that Haneul already knew the answer, but he shook his head anyway.

“I miss it,” Haneul said. “It’s not cold enough to snow here in Junon. Growing up, my brothers and I would always play in it together.”

***

On September 23, 1959, the ShinRa Manufacturing Company discovered mako energy. This was one of the first facts that Reeve learned in his Introduction to Mako Engineering class. What he had learned since then, was that ShinRa had no way of extracting the mako in any way that didn’t cause some sort of leak or hazardous effect on the environment around it. He had also learned that mako was, presumably, the power source of the Ancients, a group of people who had lived on the planet before humans.

Reeve had asked Huxley about this once as the biology student shovelled food into his mouth in the dining hall.

“They’re human, but kind of not,” Huxley had said. “We think they used mako for energy ‘an magic but we dunno really. Have ya heard about mako and materia yet?”

“It’s poisonous?” Reeve blurted out when his suspicions were confirmed in their next Mako Engineering class. He could feel the eyes of his classmates on him, but couldn’t help his curiosity. Professor Wyatt turned around and smiled at Reeve before addressing the class. 

“As Mister Tuesti has deduced, this is obviously a problem. Currently, the ShinRa Electric Power Company can convert mako to energy, but it’s a tricky process and one that we won’t be covering until the next chapter.”

“But it’s safe?” Reeve asked before he could stop himself. Professor Wyatt smiled and nodded again before gesturing to the entire class. 

“Of course! But it is a lengthy procedure. I daresay, Mister Tuesti, it’s one you’ll likely tire of when we learn it next month.”

A few of his classmates giggled at this as Reeve blushed and slumped back in his seat.

“Thank you professor,” he said. 

“Mister Tuesti, we want you to ask questions,” Professor Wyatt said with another wave of his hand. “A good engineer never stops asking whether something can be done differently or more efficiently. Now sit up straight, please.” 

Haneul was waiting outside his classroom, tapping his foot impatiently. 

“President’s here and asked to see you. Well, he actually asked to see both of us.”

Reeve looked at Haneul with confusion. “Really?”

“Yeah, c’mon I don’t want to be late like this morning.” Haneul dragged him through the maze of classroom hallways until they stood in front of Headmaster Rosario’s office. They could hear muffled voices beyond the large double doors. 

Haneul smoothed his wrinkled blazer as best he could with the palms of his hands before groaning aloud. 

“Are you nervous?” Reeve asked with a small smirk. 

“Of course! It’s the president!”

Reeve hummed. “I was really afraid the first time I met him but he’s… I dunno. Nice? Maybe not nice but he’s not mean.”

The doors burst open. Both Reeve and Haneul immediately jumped back, Reeve nearly losing his balance and falling onto the carpet. 

A tall blonde girl stormed out of the headmaster’s office with a stack of books under her arm. 

“So you’re the prodigy. Hunh.” She looked Reeve up and down with a loud sniff before turning around and walking out into the hallway. 

Reeve looked at Haneul, who had frozen in place, stunned. 

“So that’s Scarlet,” Haneul finally said. 

“Reeve, Mister Song, please come in.” The voice of the president boomed from the headmaster’s office, loud but with a warm tone that set Reeve immediately at ease. 

“President Shinra, sir,” Haneul said, bowing deeply before the desk. The president laughed and waved for Haneul to sit down.

“Please, Mister Song, there’s no need to stand on such ceremony. I’ve heard you’ve helped Reeve a great deal. May I call you Haneul?” The president asked as he stood up from Headmaster Rosario’s chair. 

Haneul nodded rapidly like one of Shinra’s Stamp toys with a moveable head. 

“I called you both here to talk about how you can continue to help Reeve further. It has come to my attention that my personal interest in Reeve’s development may have earned him some unwanted attention.”

Reeve watched as Haneul nodded again without saying a word. He bit back a giggle at how nervous his roommate was before looking back up at President Shinra. 

“I’m sorry, Reeve,” the President continued. “That was never my intention. You just remind me so much of myself at your age, especially with your love of engineering and how things are built. Why, when I was your age I was being scolded by my parents for drilling holes into our basement walls just to see what was behind them!”

President Shinra punctuated this memory with a large laugh. Reeve couldn’t help but smile. 

“Shinra wants to encourage our best and brightest so you can be a great asset to the company in the future. If you want to of course,” he added. 

Reeve nodded, hoping that he didn’t look as eager as Haneul had.

President Shinra walked sharply around the desk in a way that reminded Reeve of a soldier. He had only moved a few paces towards them before he looked at Haneul curiously. 

“Do you know how to use materia?”

Haneul nodded slowly. He looked confused, as if he was only half-convinced that President Shinra had asked him this and not Reeve. 

“Yes sir. The academy teaches entry-level materia use at 10 years-old to ensure that—“

“Yes, yes, I’m aware of the procedure,” the president interrupted. “I’d like you, with the help of Professor Wyatt, to teach Reeve.”

“Really?!” Reeve shrieked. He would have been more embarrassed if he hadn’t felt such a rush of excitement at the president’s words. The president smiled at him kindly. 

“As I said, Reeve, the company expects great things from you. Knowing how materia and mako work is a fundamental step.”

President Shinra turned to Haneul, folding his hands in front of his chest. “We pair older students with younger ones so everyone at the academy can improve together. Do you mind helping Reeve with this?”

“No!” Haneul yelled loudly, as if he was afraid the president would change his mind as he answered. “It would be an honor, sir.”

“Excellent!” President Shinra clapped his hands and then gave each of them a quick pat on the head. “I’ve kept you two long enough. I’ll let Professor Wyatt know and he’ll inform you two of the details.”

“Thank you, sir,” Reeve said, grinning over at Haneul who was still looking up at the president, stunned into silence. 

After a quick elbow from Reeve, Haneul bowed again. “I won’t let you down, sir! Thank you, sir!” 

The president simply laughed and waved them both off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I really struggled writing this chapter. T_T


	8. The Academy (Year 2, Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Reeve turned the apple over in the palm of his hand again before placing it on the tray in front of him._
> 
> _“I wish you were in my classes,” he said softly after a long pause. “I think everyone hates me.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright I've second-guessed myself enough to finally post the first half of academy year two.

“Ahhhhhh don’ worry ‘bout it. You’ll learn it eventually.” 

The conviction in Huxley’s words was diminished by the small amount of food he accidentally spat across the table at Reeve while talking. 

“You’re disgusting,” Reeve said primly. 

He made a show of wiping his face with his handkerchief out of habit. Reeve didn’t really mean it or care all that much anymore about Huxley chewing with his mouth full. That was just the way Huxley was. 

“Also it’s been half a year.” A whine crept into his voice and he quickly swallowed it back down. Reeve bit his lip. He didn’t want to be thought of as childish, even if it was just Huxley. 

“Have ya ever thought that Professor Wyatt is jus’ shite?” 

Reeve shrugged. He didn’t bother admonishing Huxley for the swear. He was nine now and shouldn’t be phased by things like swears, although he still couldn’t help but feel a bit of shock at hearing it. 

Professor Wyatt was one of the best teachers in the engineering and architecture department. Haneul had said that Reeve was lucky it was Professor Wyatt teaching his Year One Mako Engineering class and not Professor Forsythe. Professor Forsythe had taught Haneul during his first year, and he hadn’t learned enough of what he needed to get through Intermediate Mako Engineering without help. 

Next year in Year Three, Professor Wyatt would start their introductory robotics classes — something that President Shinra had reiterated to Reeve in their meetings every other month that he couldn’t skip ahead to, like some of his other studies, no matter how much he wanted to. Haneul had started his and they sounded amazing.

Reeve had always felt an odd connection to machines, almost like they were talking to him, telling him what to do and how to use them. Robotics class was the class he was looking forward to most of all and everyone said that Professor Wyatt was the best. 

“I like Professor Wyatt though,” Reeve said. “Haneul says he’s the best teacher we can get for engineering and robotics.”

“Likin’ him doesn’ mean he’s not shite at teachin’ you how to use materia.”

Huxley wasn’t wrong, yet Reeve couldn’t help but feel that his magical ineptitude had more to do with himself than Professor Wyatt and he told Huxley exactly this.

“I dunno,” Huxley said. “I jus’ can’ imagine you not bein’ able to do something like that.” He snapped his fingers loudly for emphasis, drawing a few glances from other students in the dining hall. Reeve blushed. He really didn’t know what to say to that, so he took a bite of his black bean noodles instead. They were cold and sticky since he hadn’t eaten them right away.

“Do you want these?” Reeve asked, pushing his tray forward. “I’m not really hungry anymore.”

Huxley shrugged. “If yer not gonna eat it, sure.”

***

“Have ya seen this?”

Without waiting for a response, Huxley slid a section of the Junon newspaper to him across the dining hall table along with an apple. 

“ShinRa Electric Power Company breaks ground on new 70-storey Midgar HQ,” Reeve read slowly. Huxley shook his head, mouth full of a giant sandwich he had grabbed from the line as he reached over and flipped the paper open. 

“This one.”

Reeve followed Huxley’s finger as he pointed at a headline. “Hojo named next head of ShinRa’s burgeoning Science and Research division.” If Reeve tripped over the word burgeoning, Huxley was nice enough not to say anything about it. 

The paper had a grainy black-and-white photo of a slender man with glasses, his long dark hair gathered behind the collar of his lab coat. Another photo showed a tired woman holding a baby. Reeve read on. From what he could understand, Hojo and another scientist had taken over after Professor Gast had left, but the other scientist was now in trouble for failed human experiments related to something called the Jenova Project. Reeve shuddered. 

“What even happened to Professor Gast after he left?” Reeve asked. 

Huxley leaned forward, his face inches away from Reeve’s, and whispered. “I dunno. That’s the weird part. No one knows.” His breath smelled like apples and mustard. 

“He jus’ kinda disappeared an’ no one has heard from him. Some of my teachers tried ta get in touch because they were friendly, but nothin’.”

“Hollander used ta teach here,” Huxley continued, pointing at another colourless and grainy picture. “An’ people always said he was kinda off in the head.”

“Off?”

“Yea. Mutterin’ to himself. Usin’ the labs for weird shite. Experimentin’ on animals and the like.”

Huxley followed more than a few odd conspiracy theories about the ShinRa company, which Reeve had assured him were not true. He had even offered to invite Huxley to one of his meetings with the President so he could see how nice President Shinra was. Huxley had backed away dramatically, eyes bugging out of his head and then had asked Reeve if he was crazy. 

Reeve had given up on convincing him after that. 

“Where did you get this apple anyway?” he asked, changing the subject. “It looks kind of weird.”

“Dunno,” Huxley said. “Juney got it fer me.”

Halfway through Year One, Reeve had finally solved the mystery of Huxley’s endless amount of snacks. Huxley’s younger sister Juney thought it was fun to steal them from Mr. and Mrs. Stackpoole and send them to Huxley at school herself — although, since the Stackpooles sent Huxley snacks themselves in giant care packages, Reeve supposed they didn’t care all that much about Juney stealing them.

Reeve turned the apple over in the palm of his hand again before placing it on the tray in front of him. 

“I wish you were in my classes,” he said softly after a long pause. “I think everyone hates me.”

“Ah, they’re jus’ jealous,” Huxley said. But he placed his hand quickly over Reeve’s and squeezed before returning to his sandwich. “An’ you wouldn’t want ta be in Bio anyway.”

“It doesn’t really matter why,” Reeve said after a pause, poking at the apple on his tray. “It’s just stupid.”

***

The materia lessons led to headaches. Usually Haneul helped him by playing music and turning down the lights, but he had gone somewhere after their lesson that night, claiming he had to run an errand. Reeve massaged his temples with his fingertips like Haneul had taught him but it didn’t seem to be helping much.

Haneul burst into their room, throwing a checkered square board onto the rug. “I’ve got it!”

“Not so loud!” Reeve hoped he didn’t sound too angry, although his head did hurt a lot. 

“Ah sorry, Reeve. I forgot.” Haneul lowered his voice but continued to bounce on the heels of his feet with excitement, holding a cloth bag in his hands. 

“Remember what Professor Wyatt told you about focusing?” 

Reeve nodded. Professor Wyatt had repeatedly said that successful magic users focused on their own emotions and strength. This was then channeled through the physical orb of materia, creating a connection between the user and the planet. Reeve had never really thought about the planet before and had always been more interested in machines. He supposed this was why he had yet to channel anything through the no-star cure materia orb that Professor Wyatt had given him for practice. Reeve glared at it as it looked up at him from his desk, a dull green colour. 

“I’ve thought of something that might help you! Ja-jaaaan!” Haneul gestured with a flourish at the square board in the centre of their floor. “I’m going to teach you how to play chess.”

After Reeve stared at him, fingertips still brushing against his temples, Haneul smiled again and sat down on the floor. “On second thought, we should probably get a table, but for now just sit down.”

“I used to play chess and janggi with my brothers back home all the time,” Haneul continued, upending the cloth bag. Black and white carved pieces clattered onto the board. Reeve winced at the sound.

“Janggi?”

“It’s like an older version for Icicle Inn,” Haneul said. “But what I’m going to teach you is played anywhere, so you’ll always be able to find people who play it.”

“And it’s going to help me use materia?” Reeve didn’t mean to sound so desperate, but sometimes he dreamed of never being able to learn and never being able to become an engineer because of it. 

“Yup! Chess is all about focus. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner, honestly. I should have taught you last year just so I would have someone to play against.”

“Haneul,” Reeve said softly, looking up at his roommate after he had explained the pieces and rules. His hand hovered over one of his pawns. “What if I never learn?”

“You will,” Haneul said. And Reeve couldn’t hear any doubt in Haneul’s voice.

***

“Somethin’ ‘bout this still seems wrong,” Huxley said. He chomped down on a spoonful of rice pudding so violently, Reeve could hear his teeth clang against the spoon.

Huxley had brought yet another newspaper with him to the dining hall, the latest in what was becoming an obsessive search for news on Professor Gast.

“Hollander was here, was weird, then left. Gast left ShinRa an’ no one’s heard from ‘im since.”

“Have you figured out where Professor Gast went yet?”

“Rumor is that he went to Cosmo Canyon ta study the planet. But why? He had Jenova Project an’ it was big!”

“Jenova Project?” Reeve had seen the headlines but didn’t know what it was. Huxley had probably studied it a bit, being a Biology student. He was also into weird theories and had followed Professor Gast for years.

“Achhh!” Huxley all but yelled, chomping down on his spoon again. His grasslands accent grew thicker the angrier he was, making Reeve smile. “I cannae figure it out!”

***

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

Haneul crossed his arms in front of his body as he said this in order to look as intimidating as possible. Reeve didn’t find Haneul at all intimidating — and hadn’t since his first day in Junon — and he didn’t think Huxley found anything intimidating, outside of his obvious fear of elevators. 

As if to prove Reeve right, Huxley arched an eyebrow and pulled a granola bar out of the pocket of his academy trousers. His eyes never left Haneul’s.

“You don’ have ta be here,” Huxley said to Haneul as he took a bite out of the granola bar. 

His voice still reminded Reeve of home and it was comforting, especially since they were technically breaking school rules by using magic in the dormitory. Rule-breaking was something Reeve tended to avoid at all costs. He already had enough of his classmates making fun of him for being too young.

“I’m already eleven an’ I’ve used materia fer a year. Since I started school.”

Haneul put his hands on his hips and glared back at Huxley. “Someone has to keep Reeve from getting in trouble and it’s certainly not going to be you.” 

“Also,” he added after Huxley continued to stare at him, chewing slowly. “This is our dorm room.”

Reeve didn’t understand why the two of them were so annoyed with each other tonight. They usually got along well together, all three of them. Haneul had easily taken to Huxley when Reeve had introduced them. It had hardly been surprising since Haneul was friends with nearly everyone. He supposed they were probably just as nervous about breaking the rules as he was.

“No one’s going to get in trouble,” Reeve said with what he hoped was an authoritative tone. “I’ll take the blame for it if something happens.”

“No you won’t.” Haneul shook his head. “I will. I’m the oldest after all.” 

He straightened his tie and Reeve wondered for a brief moment whether Haneul was wearing their school clip-on or his real tie. Reeve’s tie had long been folded and put away for tomorrow.

The three of them sat on the floor, Reeve’s cure materia where Haneul’s chessboard would usually be. 

“I’m still not sure if this will work,” Reeve said hesitantly. “I’ve tried channeling it with Professor Wyatt and nothing happened. And then I tried it with you, Haneul, and it didn’t even heal the blister on my thumb.”

“Well,” Haneul began. “There are three of us. And we all know you. And you’ve been learning how to focus in our chess matches, right? And Huxley, as much as I don’t want to admit this, is probably better than both of us since he’s studied more of thus stuff. We don’t really focus a lot on magic casting and materia while studying mako.”

Huxley looked surprised at the acknowledgement but nodded his head in agreement. “Put yer hands over it like this.”

He held out both hands, palms down, over the materia orb. Reeve and Haneul followed suit. 

“Think of what ya want ta heal.”

Reeve looked around and then pointed at a blue-green bruise on his knee from bumping into his desk chair. 

“Gonna count ta three an’ then we all try to go at once.”

“That’s it?” Haneul asked incredulously. 

“It doesn’ take more than that. Yer makin’ it harder than it needs ta be.” Huxley turned to Reeve, who was biting his lip nervously. 

“Reeve, are ya ready?” he asked softly. 

Reeve nodded. Haneul looked at Huxley skeptically but nodded a few seconds after Reeve. 

“Okay. One… two… three…”

A rush of energy pulsed at Reeve’s fingertips. He thought of walking into his chair accidentally and the pain that had come with the bruise. The warmth of their magic washed over him and he instinctively reached out for Huxley and Haneul’s hands. 

Reeve’s knee tickled and he looked down to see the bruised colours fading into his skin. 

“It worked!” He shrieked. His reaction caused the spell to immediately cut out, breaking their focus. Reeve dropped their hands and rubbed at his healed knee.

“I did it!’’’

“I told ya,” Huxley said. “Couldn’ imagine somethin’ ya couldn’ do right away.” 

“It’s like…” Reeve trailed off as he tried to find the words to describe what he had felt. “With you two I can focus.”

Haneul beamed, straightening his tie again. Huxley smiled and punched him softly in the shoulder.

“What’re friends for ya know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is becoming more and more difficult to write. Hopefully how ongoing events within the company affect even the younger kids at the academy comes through. 
> 
> Also here are a few notes for the curious. Again, hopefully this stuff comes through in the writing, but I've also done a lot of plotting/character sketches/etc. for this so in case people were interested, I'll start posting a few at the end of chapters.
> 
> Huxley Stackpoole is 10 years-old when he enters the academy, an average age for a first-year student. He has a younger sister, Juney, who is eight. His family lives in Midgar (and did before ShinRa started plate construction).
> 
> Haneul Song is 11 years-old and a second-year student when Reeve becomes his roommate. He has two older brothers and an older sister. A lot of his desire to protect/befriend Reeve comes from the fact that he's always been the youngest, and this is his first time in a senior position.


	9. The Academy (Year 2, Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Will you still…” Reeve trailed off, unable to finish his question._
> 
> _He had forgotten that he would likely be assigned a new roommate next year, and that Haneul would be moving into a Year Four dormitory studio. Reeve didn’t know how to ask whether Haneul was his friend even if they weren’t roommates without sounding needy or annoying. He was scared of having a new roommate._
> 
> _“Want to come visit me and my family in Icicle Inn?” Haneul asked, interrupting Reeve’s thoughts._

Towards the end of his second year, Reeve once again found himself waiting inside the headmaster’s office. President Shinra was late.

He had never been late to one of their meetings before and it unnerved Reeve, who poked at the carpet with his foot and picked at his fingernails while waiting alone. The headmaster’s assistant, used to seeing Reeve often enough, had ushered him in with her usual wave, telephone receiver cradled between her cheek and shoulder. 

Their meetings had been more regular with less formality over the past year and the bodyguards in dark-coloured suits of the first few meetings hadn’t made an appearance at all for months. The President had a specific schedule, and Reeve was the last in his line of student meetings, after Scarlet who sneered at him with derision every time, head held high and gracefully putting one foot directly in front of the other.

Reeve envied her confidence. He had tried to walk like Scarlet once, when he was alone and Haneul had been at class, and had wobbled, nearly falling onto the chessboard that now had a permanent home in the centre of their dorm room floor. Reeve hadn’t tried this again. 

“Mister Tuesti!” 

A booming voice sounded before the doors to the office sprung open with a loud banging sound. Reeve jumped in his seat. The man was taller than anyone Reeve had ever met — even Hadrian’s dad back in Kalm, who was 190 centimetres, or so Hadrian had said — with long hair and dark skin like Huxley. He had warm brown eyes and a soft smile. 

“I’m Headmaster Rosario!” the man said, holding out his hand. 

His voice was enthusiastic and loud and rather than sitting behind the desk, like the president, he sat in the chair next to Reeve. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his suit jacket was tucked over his arm. Reeve liked him immediately and shook his hand as firmly as he could.

“That’s a good handshake you have there, Mister Tuesti!” 

Reeve nodded shyly and picked at the cuffs of his blazer. He still hadn’t taken Haneul’s offer of tailoring it for him, but he supposed he was growing into it anyway. 

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here and not the president,” Headmaster Rosario continued. “He’s been tied up with a few things and had to leave Junon early, so I’ll be going over your progress today. How does that sound?”

The president had never missed one of their meetings before. This, and the fact that the headmaster had asked Reeve if it was okay to go over his progress rather than launching directly into it put Reeve on edge for reasons he couldn’t quite define. Headmaster Rosario seemed nicer than the president, but he wasn’t sure how much the headmaster knew, or how much of his meetings with the president he was supposed to share. 

“You’re very important to him, Mister Tuesti,” the headmaster said quietly after Reeve remained silent. 

Reeve still didn’t really know what to say. 

“You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to, but let’s at least go over your materia lessons. How does that sound?” Headmaster Rosario repeated. He sat back in the chair to Reeve’s left in a relaxed position, forearms draped over the armrests casually. 

Reeve nodded.

***

“I may have found ‘im,” Huxley told Reeve at lunch the next day. “Take a look.”

Reeve unfolded the newspaper that Huxley slid across the table. 

“Long-time Shinra executive scientist Gast Faremis spotted in Cosmo Canyon,” he read slowly. “Oh! So he’s alive at least. I guess those rumours you saw before were true.”

Huxley nodded. “I dunno what he’s doin’ there. I heard that Cosmo Canyon is a buncha crackpots but…”

“Isn’t there a girl in your class from Cosmo Canyon?” Reeve asked, sliding the newspaper back to Huxley. He remembered hearing Huxley mention it once. 

Huxley nodded. “Yea, Camellia somethin’ and she’s a right loony. Goin’ on about how certain people can hear the voices of the planet an’ how the planet will die if we use mako ’n stuff. Gast was studyin’ Jenova who was an Ancient an’ people think that Ancients could talk ta the planet but I dunno about ordinary people. I hope Gast didn’ get caught up in that shite.” He chewed on his plastic spoon with a frown.

“People from Cosmo Canyon study the stars right?” Reeve asked. “I wonder why she’s here studying bio.”

“Beats me. As long as she stays outta my way an’ doesn’t keep spoutin’ nonsense,” Huxley said. He then launched into a story about how one of their professors had made her stand outside in the hallway with a bucket of water on her head for disrupting one of their lessons on materia creation. 

“That’s kind of mean,” Reeve said, wrinkling his nose. He hoped that if he made a mistake in class, he wouldn’t have to stand outside for everyone to see. 

Huxley shrugged. “She didn’ disrupt class after that so I s’pose it worked.”

***

Year Three meant that Haneul had been busier than ever. Reeve rarely saw him outside of mornings when they were both getting ready for classes, evenings when they were both doing homework — even then, Haneul would sometimes go to the library — and weekend chess matches.

Weeknights where they could relax and play chess or watch a movie were few and far between. Reeve had taken to looking over the Midgar plans that President Shinra had given him in their first meeting. He had hung it on the wall next to his bed and the margins were now covered with notes and sticky pieces of coloured paper that he could move around as he tried to gather his thoughts. 

Tonight, Huxley hadn’t been able to make their not-so-secret materia casting practice due to an assignment deadline, so Haneul had suggested a match. 

“Just wait until you get your own first-year to annoy,” Haneul said, laughing as he captured Reeve’s rook. “To be honest, I didn’t torture you nearly as much as I should have.” 

“Will you still…” Reeve trailed off, unable to finish his question. 

He had forgotten that he would likely be assigned a new roommate next year, and that Haneul would be moving into a Year Four dormitory studio. Reeve didn’t know how to ask whether Haneul was his friend even if they weren’t roommates without sounding needy or annoying. He was scared of having a new roommate. 

“Want to come visit me and my family in Icicle Inn?” Haneul asked, interrupting Reeve’s thoughts. 

“My brothers are really annoying and my sister is pretty annoying too, but you’d see the snow and we could go snowboarding— oh, and there’s a mako fountain nearby so you could practice your materia casting. I’ve already talked to Huxley about it and he’s in as long as you guys came with me right after school instead of heading back on the grasslands buggy.”

Reeve stared at Haneul, who continued to ramble about Icicle Inn and how great it was, a slight blush on his cheeks. 

“Yeah!” Reeve said. Hanuel looked a bit taken aback at Reeve’s sudden outburst. 

He swallowed and moved his bishop across the board, immediately recognizing that it was a bad move, and that he should have been paying more attention. “I’d really like to go. I just need to write a letter to Ma about it so she’s not worried or anything. Also I guess I would need to figure out how to get home.”

Haneul nodded, beaming wildly as he reached towards the chessboard. “You do that,” he said. “When I talked to Huxley about it, he said that his family could probably help you out, since you’d be travelling back together anyway.”

“Also, checkmate.”

Reeve smiled. He didn’t feel badly about losing at all.

***

They met at least once a week to supplement Professor Wyatt’s Thursday night materia lessons. Haneul’s fear of being caught by a teacher or Jean, their dormitory captain, had lessened with each meeting. He supposed that there was no way they could definitively know that they were using magic without permission, save someone getting hurt by it, and they had only focused on Reeve learning Cure.

One time, Huxley had cast Barrier to show off and Haneul had bruised his knuckles punching it to see if it had worked, but Haneul wasn’t going to see the nurses about it, especially when it had been his idea to test the barrier. 

Reeve could now cast a simple cure spell without the help of Huxley and Haneul, but it drained him physically and often made him nauseous. It was frustrating. He didn’t see Haneul or Huxley, especially Huxley, have the same issues whenever they used materia. Maybe it was because he was younger. 

“It’s okay,” Haneul said, rubbing his back as Reeve knelt in front of their toilet, having just finished vomiting. “I get headaches sometimes and they used to be a lot worse when I first started. I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”

Huxley somehow remained unaffected and was eating some sort of dried fruit that he’d brought in a small tin. Juney must have sent him another package of stolen snacks. 

“Can you…” Reeve swallowed. “Go outside of the bathroom with that at least.” His voice was sharp and strained. He hoped that Huxley didn’t take it personally, although he shouldn’t have worried about it at all. Huxley rarely took anything personally. 

“Ach… yea sorry ‘bout that,” Huxley said as if he hadn’t even thought about how the food smell could affect someone who was sick.

“Ya know,” Huxley called out from the larger room. “Maybe ya just aren’t communicating with the planet enough. That’s what Camellia would say.”

“Is that right?” Reeve said dryly, spitting into the sink as he brushed his teeth. It was probably time to clean their mirror since it was covered with flecks of toothpaste and dried steam residue. He made a mental note to remind Haneul later. 

“Well, we’ve talked about how it’s about focusing, right? And the chess has helped. Also you can do it on your own now when you couldn’t before. Honestly, Reeve, you’ve made a lot of progress.”

Reeve wondered if there was anything that would ever stop Haneul from being positive. He hoped there wasn’t. The older boy’s positivity was infectious.

“Yea,” Huxley added. “Also yer goin’ inta engineering. Ya don’ need this stuff except ta understand how it works. S’not like yer goin’ inta the military. Heck, even I dunno how much I’m gonna use materia an’ I’m in bio.”

Reeve sighed, earning a concerned look from Haneul while Huxley blissfully chewed away at another piece of dried fruit. 

“I know it’s just…” Reeve stopped himself before he could finish. It seemed selfish to want to be good at everything. 

But he really wanted to be good at everything. 

“How about an emergency practice session tomorrow night?” Haneul asked. “Huxley you’re free right?”

“Actually I ha—oof!” 

Haneul elbowed Huxley hard in the stomach before he could finish his thought. 

“He’s free,” Haneul said. 

Reeve couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks guys,” he said quietly. The room somehow felt like his first-ever Cure spell — warm and friendly.

***

President Shinra returned to Junon after two months. Reeve met with Headmaster Rosario in the interim and liked him a lot, but was still happy to see the president back at their meetings. It made him feel special, like Shinra really did have a place for him.

“I’ve heard you’re going up to Icicle Inn to visit Mister Song’s family in a week,” the president said, smiling pleasantly. He knitted his fingers together, setting them on Headmaster Rosario’s desk. Reeve grinned up at him. 

“Yeah! I’m really excited to meet his family, especially his brothers.”

The president nodded. “Forgive me if this is overstepping, Reeve, but I’m glad you’ve made some friends. I know it must have been difficult for you to be so much younger than your classmates.”

Reeve nodded. Sometimes he couldn’t believe just how nice the president was. 

“Now, take me through your materia lessons with Professor Wyatt. How are they going?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a lot of what I want to accomplish with this story (outside of giving Reeve the narrative epic imo he deserves) is to show how manipulative Shinra was from the start. I do think the president was less cartoonishly-evil at this time and greed continued to corrupt him, but he also was keeping his eye on Reeve, Scarlet, and other students for very specific reasons. Headmaster Rosario is under similar instruction.
> 
> Also, with the mention of visiting Haneul's family in Icicle Inn, you can probably see where Huxley's narrative is headed, but hopefully I can make it interesting and surprising enough. 
> 
> Next chapter, the first Icicle Inn visit. Cheers and thanks for reading!


	10. Icicle Inn (between Years 2 and 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Professor Gast Faremis was an awkward man who looked exactly like he did in the newspapers. He fluttered around nervously, serving hot cocoa as an older woman serenely looked on in interest._
> 
> _“As you already know, I’m Gast Faremis,” he said. “And this is my wife, Ifalna.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is now the longest thing I've ever written on here. Special thanks to anyone who is actually reading this. I hope I'm not boring you. ^ ^;

Icicle Inn was home to Gaia’s northernmost airport. Most people who travelled this far were scientists, sent to what seemed like the end of the planet to study the Ancients and the North Crater beyond the Great Glacier. 

Huxley had explained this excitedly and at length during their flight, pressing Haneul to see if they could possibly visit the crater while Haneul had shot down every one of Huxley’s ideas.

“I’m telling you it’s too far. No one makes it out of the glacier alive without years of training.”

“We could jus’ go up a bit ta see if we can see the crater.”

“You’ll die and they’ll never find the body because of the snow and I’m not going to go looking for you if you pull that shit.”

“Where’s yer sense of adventure? We’re scientists!”

“You’re not a scientist yet. You’re only eleven.”

“Ah come off it, Haneul, yer only a year older.” 

“And Reeve’s only nine!”

Normally Reeve would have bristled at this, but there was something about the situation that made him feel warm. It was just like the first time he had used materia with them, or the long nights spent playing chess on the floor while Huxley ate snacks and tried to read scientific journals that used words too big for him to understand. 

Reeve smiled to himself as he tuned out the rest of their argument.

***

A tall, dark-haired man with a wide smirk and a dark overcoat met them on the snowfields. He quickly ushered them into the two-room building that apparently served as the Icicle Area airport and shoved parkas with fur-trimmed hoods into Reeve and Huxley’s hands. Haneul was already wearing one. Huxley had teased him about it when he’d pulled it from his trunk before they’d left Junon.

“What’s going on, Sky?” The man said to Haneul, still grinning. 

Haneul frowned and spat at him in a language that Reeve didn’t understand. Reeve looked at Huxley, who shrugged back at him before continuing to transfer snacks from his trouser pockets into the significantly larger pockets of his new parka. 

The man laughed again and ruffled Haneul’s already messy hair as Haneul squirmed out of his arms, still yelling in the same language. The more the man laughed, the redder Haneul’s face became. 

Finally Haneul said something that made the man back off, raising his hands up in a surrender gesture, dark-brown eyes twinkling with mirth. After making a small show of dusting himself off from their small scuffle, Haneul elbowed the man in the stomach. 

“This is my oldest brother, Dongil,” he said. “He’s kind of an idiot.”

“Hey, I resent that, Sky. They teach you to disrespect your elders at the Academy?” There were no malice in his words, just a beaming smile at his younger brother.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Haneul seethed. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll stop embarrassing you in front of your friends.” Dongil paused and looked at them before pointing. “Reeve.”

Reeve nodded. Dongil turned and faced Huxley.

“And Huxley.”

“Good guesses,” Huxley said. “Although s’only the two of us so ya had a 50-50 shot.”

“Ah,” Dongil wagged his finger at Huxley. “But Haneul here has told us so much about you two. The family can’t wait to meet you.”

“I’ll bet,” Haneul said sullenly. 

“Awwww, don’t be so nervous, little bro.”

“I’m not!”

Dongil barked another laugh, throwing his head back. He said something brief to Haneul in the other language before pointing a thumb at the door. 

“C’mon I have the sled outside. Everyone better have their hoods up and gloves on. If you don’t have gloves, there should be some in the pockets of those parkas I gave you all.”

Reeve placed his hands in the parka pockets and sure enough, there were large thick gloves. They were lined with some sort of fur inside, and were warm but too big for Reeve’s hands. He poked at the empty part at the top, folding it over his index finger.

The sled turned out to be a motorized buggy-like vehicle with skis. Reeve knelt down immediately, running a gloved finger over the snow shavings that had collected on the top of the ski. 

“How does it run?”

Dongil looked at Reeve with an amused expression, brown eyes peering out over the top of a bright red scarf. “Gas engine.”

“Do you think it could run on mako?”

“Too expensive.”

“How many kilometres can it go before you have to fill it up?”

“Don’t know, never checked.”

“Never?” Reeve wrinkled his nose in disbelief. 

Dongil simply laughed again and put his arm around Reeve, pulling him up off of the ground. He seemed a lot like Haneul. They had a similar-sounding laugh and outward warmth. 

“Kid, if Haneul hadn’t told me you were an engineer I definitely would have known after that lightning round.”

“Lighting round?” 

“Look, get on the sled and when we get home, you can poke and prod it all you want. Heck, I’ll even let you take it apart.”

“Really?!”

“Really.” Dongil shook his head good-naturedly as he helped Reeve up into the sled. “Also how come you’re so much more polite than that one?” He gestured to Huxley in the back. “Little bro said you were from the same area.”

Reeve blushed and looked down at his hands, playing with the extra fabric at the fingertips of his gloves.

“Don’t listen to him, he’s just being an idiot,” Haneul said. “Again.”

“Dunno, he seems nice ta me.”

Haneul turned his glare towards Huxley, who instead of taking any offense to Dongil’s words, smirked back at Haneul from where his face was nearly hidden by the parka hood. He had pulled the string as tightly as possible so only his nose and the top of his mouth could be seen. 

Dongil cackled and leaned forward, turning the key to start the sled. Reeve watched him closely as he pumped a small choke while simultaneously pulling out a long metal wire with a handle as fast as he could. After a few tries, a cloud of gas sputtered from the engine and the sled roared to life. 

“There has to be an easier way.” 

“If there is, kid, you let me know after you take it apart okay?”

Reeve blushed again. He hadn’t realized he’d said that aloud. 

“Hang on to something.” Dongil said this as he squeeze two large handles at the front and the sled lurched forward. Both Huxley and Reeve fell onto the floor immediately. Haneul slid in his seat and then offered each of them a hand. 

“You should look outside,” he said. “Especially since you two have never seen snow before.”

Reeve wiped frost off of the nearest window with his glove and looked out, wide-eyed. The snow fields stretched endlessly, with the occasional pine tree dotting the horizon. Snow-covered mountains loomed in the distance. 

None of them said another word until Dongil pulled up outside of a large cabin. It had started to snow and buildings slowly came into focus as he slowed the sled to a stop. The road was warmly lit with yellow streetlamps, unlike the greenish mako lamps that Shinra had started to use in Junon. 

“We use it as an inn sometimes,” Dongil said, helping them down from the sled. “So you three will be staying in Haneul and Siyoung’s room.”

“Siyoung is my other brother,” Haneul whispered. “He’s quiet but less of an idiot.”

Dongil laughed and said a rush of something in their native language that made Haneul frown.

“Don’t be rude,” Haneul said. “They don’t understand.” 

His oldest brother shrugged. Reeve would later swear that he never saw a smile leave Dongil’s face the entire time they visited. 

“How else am I supposed to tease you, Sky?” Dongil said, reaching forward to knock Haneul’s hood back and ruffle his hair again. 

“Arghhh! That’s it!” Haneul shoved Dongil away, shaking his head violently so the snow that had been deposited into his hair fell onto the ground. His cheeks were wet with melted snow and red with embarrassment. 

“Excuse you I am your older brother!” Dongil said with mock indignation. “Show some respect!”

Siyoung was seated inside along with Mrs Song at the kitchen table as they noisily tumbled inside. He gave a slight bow and a wave as Haneul and Dongil began to stomp their feet onto the mat. Reeve’s feet were wet and cold and he quickly took his trainers off. 

“Dongil! Did you not offer these boys some boots?” Mrs Song said, fussing over Reeve and Huxley as they shivered in wet socks. 

“I’m Haneul’s mother,” she told the two of them in a softer voice. “Welcome to our home. Please go and sit in front of the fireplace. You’ll warm right up.”

Turning to Haneul, she addressed him by name before saying something in their native language and embracing him tightly. After a few moments, she placed her hand on the small of Haneul’s back and pushed him towards Huxley and Reeve, saying something else followed by his name. 

“I’ll show you the living room first,” Haneul said. His cheeks flushed red but he grinned broadly. 

Haneul didn’t look much like his two older brothers, but he and the girl seated in a large rocking chair in the corner of their living room could have been twins. They had similar sharp cheeks, dark brown eyes, and slightly unruly hair. 

“That’s Yujin,” Haneul said, tilting his head in the girl’s direction. “She sucks the least of all of them, I suppose.” 

“Thanks, little bro,” Yujin said with a smile and a wave. She also bowed slightly to Huxley and Haneul. “Nice to meet you two.”

***

Being with the Song family was overwhelming in the best way. For the majority of his childhood before the Academy, it had just been Ma and Reeve in the house. Although he’d played with neighborhood kids and stayed at Ma Lauria’s, nothing compared to the warmth and bickering of the Song family. Even when Reeve couldn’t understand what they were saying he watched, fascinated, soaking it all in.

“You’re a kid,” Reeve said to Haneul in wonder as they laid on the floor of Haneul’s room. The wooden planks on his ceiling were covered with scribbles and glow-in-the-dark star stickers. Huxley snored loudly beside them.

“Hunh? I mean, yeah I guess so?” Haneul sounded confused. 

Reeve shook his head. “I mean, when we’re at the Academy you’re so much older than me, you know? And you can do everything.”

Haneul scoffed. “Tuesti, you made it into the Academy when you were eight.”

“Yeah but you’ve already taken all of my classes and you can cast materia well without help and you stood up to those mean kids in our form group…” Reeve trailed off. He was tired and didn’t really know how to say what he wanted to say. Instead, he reached out and squeezed Haneul’s hand.

“Seeing you with your family, I dunno, it’s just nice to know that you’re a kid too.”

Haneul hummed and squeezed Reeve’s hand in response.

“Why does your brother call you Sky?”

“It’s dumb. It’s what my name means.”

“Wait that’s so cool though. I dunno if my name means anything.”

Haneul didn’t say anything, but Reeve felt his shoulders move slightly. They stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like hours.

“Going to miss you next year, Reeve.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Reeve sleepily slurred as he closed his eyes. “S’gonna be weird.”

***

A few fresh centimetres of snow greeted them in the morning. Both Mr and Mrs Song made them a gigantic morning meal in exchange for the boys shovelling the walkways outside of the inn with the promise of sledding that afternoon.

Mrs Song insisted that one of the older siblings accompany them in case someone was hurt. Since Yujin was still technically in school, albeit from home, and Dongil had to work, this left Siyoung, who nodded and suited up in his own outdoor attire after offering Reeve one of his old pairs of boots. 

Siyoung quietly pointed out the rest of the town as they walked through, stopping in front of an odd, metal building close to the town centre. 

“You know,” Siyoung said. “I’ve never known what this building was built for.”

Reeve studied it with a raised eyebrow. It was weirdly-shaped and looked a bit like someone had accidentally plopped an observatory in the middle of uniform wooden cabins. 

Haneul shrugged. “It’s been abandoned for a while but there’s still electricity it in and stuff. Not many people come here, but when they do and they don’t want to stay in the inn, they can stay here too I guess.”

Siyoung nodded in agreement. “I don’t think anyone has stayed here in quite some time.”

“Can we go inside?” Reeve asked.

“Yea! It can be our secret hideout,” Huxley added. 

Haneul reached forward and rapped on the door with his knuckles. “I guess so. I’ll just check to make sure no one’s staying here right now.”

Reeve stepped back, hearing loud shuffling noises from behind the door. “Hey, I think someone really is in there.”

A moustached man with dark-coloured glasses answered the door. Three of them recognized him immediately. Siyoung looked on in confusion. 

“May I help you boys?” 

Huxley shrieked.

***

Professor Gast Faremis was an awkward man who looked exactly like he did in the newspapers. He fluttered around nervously, serving hot cocoa as an older woman serenely looked on in interest.

“As you already know, I’m Gast Faremis,” he said. “And this is my wife, Ifalna.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she said. 

Reeve waited for Huxley to excitedly introduce himself, but the biology student had been quieter than Siyoung since they had walked into Professor Gast’s home. After an awkward pause, Haneul took charge of introductions. 

“I’m Haneul Song,” he said. “You may already know my older brother Siyoung Song since he’s been in town and I’ve been away at the Shinra Academy in Junon. Our family runs the inn. These are my friends from school, Reeve Tuesti and Huxley Stackpoole. Huxley’s been following your work for a while, actually.”

“Have you?” Professor Gast asked, turning to Huxley with interest. For whatever reason it was being addressed directly that unlocked Huxley from his stunned shock. 

“I’ve tried ta read everythin’ ya’ve ever done,” Huxley said. “Or at least what I could understand. Was hard sometimes but yer an inspiration. The Jenova Project from what I could read was amazin’ an’ I’ve tried ta follow ya even after ya left. Will ya ever come back? What were ya doin’ in Cosmo Canyon Professor? Studyin’ the planet? Studyin’ Jenova? Studyin’—“

“Whoa, whoa, slow down.” Professor Gast held his hands up in front of him as Ifalna covered her mouth and giggled. “I’m not a professor anymore, just someone who is studying the planet.”

“Dear, a doctorate or professorship doesn’t go away just because you’re not employed by Shinra,” Ifalna said. 

It was the first time she had spoken. Her voice was deep and soothing. She spoke with a confidence that Reeve hadn’t heard from anyone else. 

“I daresay you’ve learned much more since our time in Cosmo Canyon than you did in your years with Shinra,” she continued. “If anything, you’re even more accomplished now.”

Professor Gast beamed at Ifalna. It reminded Reeve of how his dad looked at his ma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haneul is a native Korean name (as opposed to a Sino-Korean name derived from Hanja and Chinese origin) that means "sky." 
> 
> Reeve's name means "bailiff" or "administrator" of either a king or castle, he just doesn't know it himself.
> 
> Again, thanks to everyone who reads this. It means a lot. I always worry whenever there are multiple OCs in a story since people tend to lose interest, doubly so if it's about a comparatively minor character like Reeve. I said at the beginning that this was a vanity project, and that remains true, but it's nice to know that people are actually enjoying it.


	11. The Academy (Year 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _As he opened the box, a small puff of mythril dust flew into the air. Reeve couldn’t help but lean over the box and breathe it in. He coughed moments later, but it smelled like home._
> 
> _Inside there was a small card and four embroidered handkerchiefs with large yellow flowers on them. He’d have to ask Huxley if he knew what kind of flower it was._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is ready for some thermodynamics? Reeve is.

“A cursory glance over last night’s homework tells me that not all of you understand the four basic processes of a steam-operated heat engine so ladies and gentlemen, once more unto the breach! At least until class ends in ten minutes.”

A chorus of groans, including Reeve’s own, greeted Professor Marquet’s smirk. She shrugged and clapped her hands loudly, silencing the class. 

“This isn’t a slight,” she said. “You are all bright young men and women. Think of it this way, if you already understand, then use this opportunity to perfect your knowledge which, if I may be so bold, is why you are all here in Junon and not at whatever regional school is located in your hometown and yes, before you raise your hand Miss Brodeur I am aware that you are from Junon.”

Reeve hid a smile as Imogene Brodeur lowered her hand with a pout. 

Professor Marquet turned back to the large whiteboard behind her desk. With a flick of her wrist, she extended a small pointer from her sleeve, catching it in her hand neatly before placing the rubber tip firmly at the lower right corner of the board. 

“Processes one through two — liquid pumps from low pressure to high pressure. Processes two to three — our liquid, now at a high pressure, goes into a boiler where it’s heated at a constant temperature to produce dry and saturated vapour.” She looked out across the classroom. 

Reeve fought the urge to look away. Haneul had told him several times that he should square his shoulders and start looking people in the eye more often, even if he was younger, to help keep himself from being intimidated.

“Can someone tell me what process three to four is?” Professor Marquet asked. 

Imogene’s hand immediately shot up into the air along with several of their classmates and Reeve’s own. 

“Go ahead, Miss Brodeur.”

“The saturated vapour generates power through a turbine,” Imogene said, standing up to answer. “But the temperature and saturation are lowered so condensation also happens.”

Professor Marquet nodded. “Processes four to one, Mister Tuesti.”

Reeve jumped a bit in his seat. He had forgotten that his hand was still up. 

“The wet vapour goes into a condenser,” he said, standing up. 

Reeve picked at the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. He still hadn’t grown into his shirts. The ones that the school automatically provided were a general size for third-years and at 10, he was still smaller than the average 12 year-old year-three student. 

“At constant pressure it becomes a saturated liquid.”

The professor clapped her hands again and nodded, dismissing both Reeve and Imogene who sat back down in their seats. 

“And then the cycle continues, but our time right now does not. If you do not have a good, copy of this diagram on the board, I will leave it up for one more day so you can draw it in your notes at your own pace.”

“Will we be covering why it’s called isentropic expansion and isentropic compression?” Imogene stumbled a bit over the words, earning a warm smile from Professor Marquet. 

“An excellent question, Miss Brodeur and one that will be answered in the next section of our syllabus once we move forward in the following week.” 

Imogene frowned but nodded her head. Reeve sympathized. He too had wanted to move on from today. 

The mako reactor plans that President Shinra had given him earlier in the year remained permanently spread across his desk. Reeve knew they could be improved but he had no idea where to begin. He wanted to push himself past what they were learning in class to wherever he needed to be to understand those plans. 

A chiming sound through the PA system signalled the end of class. Professor Marquet clapped her hands a final time, snapping her wrist again so her pointer shrunk back to the size of a pencil, where she tucked it back underneath the cuff of her blazer. 

“Until tomorrow!”

Reeve watched as his fellow students rushed off to their dormitory rooms or other classes. He hung back, pretending to study the processes diagram, despite having an accurate — albeit, slightly smudged, Reeve’s drafting and drawing wasn’t the best — copy in his notebook. 

When he felt like he could no longer linger in the classroom — even Imogene had left, after stopping at Professor Marquet’s desk for a moment — Reeve sighed and slowly closed his books. 

“Mister Tuesti.”

He looked up and immediately jumped back, seeing the smiling face of Professor Marquet a few centimetres from his own. She smirked and stood up, crossing her arms in front of her chest. 

“I can’t help but notice, Mister Tuesti, that you are reluctant to leave my classroom most days.”

Reeve nodded, rolling his shoulders back in a slight shrug.

“Is everything okay?”

Resisting the urge to sigh again, Reeve squared his shoulders and looked up at Professor Marquet. Her eyes were filled with genuine concern.

“I’m alright, Professor,” Reeve finally said. 

She squinted down at him over the tortoiseshell rims of her glasses. Reeve could tell that she didn’t believe him. 

“If there is ever anything, Mister Tuesti, please don’t hesitate to let me or any of the other teachers know. We’ve been told that the President has great things in store for you and—“ Professor Marquet interrupted herself to hand Reeve his pencil that had rolled off his desk and fallen on the floor earlier in their lecture.

“—I can see why. You’re not only keeping up with your older peers, you’re ahead of them, aren’t you?”

Reeve shrank back under the scrutiny, tugging his shirtsleeves out from where they had bunched up underneath his blazer cuffs. 

“I’ve only read ahead to the next chapter,” he said.

She laughed. “That’s not an accusation, Mister Tuesti. I wish all students were as eager as you and Miss Brodeur.”

Reeve continued to pick at his cuffs, teasing a loose thread from where a button was beginning to tear away from the fabric, but still flushed with pride. 

“Whatever you need, Mister Tuesti,” Professor Marquet said, rising and returning to her desk. “The faculty are here to help you. Unfortunately for now, I do have to request that you leave so I can prepare for my next class in a half hour.”

“Of course. Thank you, Professor.” Reeve nodded awkwardly and shoved the rest of his books and papers into his bag haphazardly. 

At least his conversation with Professor Marquet had lasted long enough that Reeve could go back to his dorm room having just missed Snyder before the year-one engineering student headed off to statistics class.

***

“He’s an arsehole,” Huxley said of Snyder after Reeve had been roommates with him for a week. “Don’ worry ‘bout ‘im.”

“He’s not though.” Reeve frowned, stirring his soup slowly without eating it. “He’s just— I dunno. Distant.”

He was too embarrassed to tell Huxley about how he had been looking forward to leading another Academy student. Although Haneul had said that not everyone got along as well as he and Reeve did, Reeve had wanted to be friends with Snyder but it hadn’t happened yet and wasn’t likely to happen at all. 

On the first day of their third year, Reeve had organized his room as best he could, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach at Haneul’s absence. Haneul had assured Reeve that he could come by his room any time in the engineering singles. 

“Plus, we’ll see each other in form group! And my parents definitely want you guys to visit again this year,” Haneul had said while packing up his stuff at the end of last year. 

He had looked about as sad as Reeve had felt.

Reeve’s new roommate introduced himself as Snyder Horne. He was 10 years-old and from Junon. Snyder had announced these facts to Reeve upon meeting him, making a bit of a face that Reeve was the same age as him, despite being in Year Three.

Later that night, Reeve stared up at his ceiling in the dark, imagining the stars stuck above Haneul’s bed in Icicle Inn. He had been looking forward to whoever would come to his door with the words “Tuesti, Reeve” next to the small black text that read “Roomate(s)” but it had been more awkward than anything else. 

The term continued. Snyder wasn’t openly hostile towards Reeve, or even passive-aggressively mean. He was simply quiet and kept to himself. All attempts that Reeve had made to include him in playing chess or going to the dining hall had been politely declined. Reeve had seen him with other kids in his own form group, so he assumed that Snyder was getting along with others well enough. 

It’s not like they had to be friends. It just stung a bit more than Reeve was willing to tell Huxley, who was currently wolfing down the rest of his rice. 

“Forget about ‘im,” Huxley said, swallowing the last of it. He had several rice grains stuck to his chin, and immediately swiped at it when Reeve made a wiping motion across his own face. 

“Did I tell ya that Professor Gast wrote back ta me?”

“Wait really? That’s cool,” Reeve said. He smiled broadly, knowing that any sort of letter from Professor Gast would be considered as the word of a god to Huxley. 

Once Huxley had recovered from his initial shock at finding Professor Gast and his wife in Icicle Inn, he had bombarded the scientist with questions, dragging Haneul and Reeve to the small house in the centre of town every day until they had left. 

“He said tha he can be my mentor when I’m older!” 

Huxley raised his fist in the air, still chewing. Reeve met it with a small bump across the table and another grin. 

“I’m happy for you, Huxley,” Reeve said.

***

“There’s a package for you,” Snyder said one day towards the end of third term. He didn’t look at Reeve from where he was seated at his desk across the room as Reeve walked in from class.

Reeve frowned at the small package that had been placed on his bed until he read the return address, stamped over with a blue ink ShinRa logo. 

As he opened the box, a small puff of mythril dust flew into the air. Reeve couldn’t help but lean over the box and breathe it in. He coughed moments later, but it smelled like home. 

Inside there was a small card and four embroidered handkerchiefs with large yellow flowers on them. He’d have to ask Huxley if he knew what kind of flower it was. 

_Dear Reeve,_

_I hope you are well. Please give these to Huxley and Haneul when you see them._

_-Ma_

Ma usually kept her letters short like this one. 

At first, Reeve had been a bit hurt, thinking that she hadn’t thought of anything else to say or even had been glad to get rid of Reeve after sending him to Junon. 

Yet, this past summer when Huxley and his mother had visited their house just outside of Kalm, Reeve had realized that Ma was nervous about sounding different or misspelling something in her letters. When she had cleaned their room top to bottom and fretted over tableware as well as what to say, Reeve had told her that it didn’t matter, that Huxley and Mrs Stackpoole both had thick accents and really didn’t care. She’d still been so cautious in her speech.

He couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been trying to teach him how to speak more properly. Reeve also didn’t know how he felt about this, but he knew it wasn’t a good feeling although he tried his best to speak as politely and with as little of his grasslands accent as possible. Teachers and his classmates took him more seriously that way. 

Shaking his head, Reeve held one of the handkerchiefs up to his face and breathed deeply. He bit his lip, holding back tears as he pulled out a pencil and piece of paper from his bag. 

His fingers itched to talk about Snyder and how to fix the awkward silences. Reeve knew Ma would understand.

Instead, he wrote about his Introduction to Thermal Power class and finally officially being able to use materia with his classmates. 

His roommate situation was probably something he should learn to deal with on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The four processes described are the four processes of the Rankine Cycle, an ideal cycle meant to predict steam turbine performance. (We're going to be learning a lot about thermal cycles and how they related to power plants to make Reeve's mako reactor as believable as possible, which should be fun since I haven't studied any of this in years, if at all. ^ ^)
> 
> The flowers are yellow poppy flowers. In Victorian flower language they meant wealth and prosperity. 
> 
> This was a shorter description of the year. I wanted to take a look at a few important things:
> 
> -Reeve trying to move away from and/or hiding something from his parents for the first time as he's getting older.  
> -Struggling without having an immediate peer mentor for the first time (with ShinRa teachers trying to fill that vacuum).  
> -Huxley is communicating with Professor Gast on a semi-regular basis(!!)


	12. To Junon (Between Years Three and Four)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Juney hummed in agreement as if he’d finished his thought before looking up at Reeve with a smirk. “She’s not wrong but I like playin’ up my accent. Makes people think less of me an’ then I have the power, not them.”_
> 
> _Reeve hadn’t thought of it that way before. It only confirmed his opinion that Juney was both smart and terrifying._

Reeve had made a mistake. 

Professor Marquet would have diplomatically called it “a small miscalculation” but Professor Marquet wasn’t under the Midgar-Junon buggy with her sleeves rolled up and a face full of engine oil. 

He had volunteered to help thinking that he could immediately fix it — he had also always wanted to take a closer look at the buggy, ever since his first trip on it back before Year One at the Academy. Yet, there wasn’t something wrong with the engine at all. It was a completely unrelated problem keeping them stuck at the Kalm pickup spot. 

Reeve would have laughed aloud at how stupid it was if he hadn’t been covered in engine oil, dirt, and grease. 

Instead, he spat out as much of the oil that had dripped into his mouth as he could before he looked back up into the engine to extract what he had found: half of the body of a small animal that had been crushed as soon as Seany had fired up the buggy. Beyond where he’d drained the engine — thinking that all the buggy needed was some fresh oil and maybe a cleaner filter — Reeve brushed off as much of the blood and rodent guts as he could, trying not to think about how he was touching a dead animal with his hands. 

The culprit had been some sort of rodent that had presumably crawled into the engine for warmth. Its body had been torn apart immediately as the engine had started but the force had dislodged one of the connecting engine belts, stopping the engine completely. Reeve groaned as he strained to wrap the offending belt around its proper wheel. 

On their now-yearly visit to Icicle Inn, Dongil had laughed at Reeve while telling him to check for animals under the snowmobile engine before starting it. Reeve had thought he was joking. 

“Gross,” he whispered, pushing himself out from under the buggy with force after reconnecting the belt. The cement floor of the rest stop scraped against his shirt. He hoped he hadn’t torn it. Reeve had few clothes outside of his Academy uniforms. 

“Try it now!” Reeve yelled to Seany in the driver’s seat. 

Seany nodded and the entire buggy shuddered to life. 

“Son I didna believe that ye could fix it but yer a right smart one aren’t ye?” Seany yelled back over the sounds of the engine,. He beamed at Reeve through the dirty windshield. 

“I told Ruvie ya’d end up smart.”

Reeve ducked his head, cheeks colouring. “You’ll need some more oil soon,” he mumbled. 

“Hey Tuesti, what’s— wow ya look terrible!” 

Juney Stackpoole broke out into peals of laughter, pointing at Reeve. “What happened to yer face?”

“I was fixing the buggy,” Reeve said primly, drawing himself up to full height. He gave a small wave towards Huxley, who had also emerged from the other side of the buggy, trying to hide a grin. Reeve smiled back at him over Juney’s shoulder, rolling his eyes and pointing at his face. 

“I was fixing the buggy,” Juney mimicked, not unlike her brother had on their first trip. 

Where Reeve worked to hide his accent, Juney seemed to relish and exaggerate hers.

“What was wrong with it?” she asked.

“An animal crawled up in there for warmth and when the engine started…” Reeve shuddered, remembering that moments ago his hands were filled with animal guts.

Juney laughed without a hint of disgust. “Ach! That’s so gross.”

Reeve nodded, giving her a small smile in return. 

He had met Juney over the previous summer during their combined family gathering. The Stackpoole family was loud and boisterous — especially when compared to Ma and himself — and Juney had been no exception, brushing aside the chiding voices of her parents with a wave of her hand and a smirk. 

She was already taller than Reeve, despite being a year younger, and she had thick black hair that fell just past her shoulders. Where Huxley was warm and affable, his sister was wry and calculating. 

Reeve was just a bit terrified of her, especially after she had destroyed him in chess several times this past summer. 

Fighting the urge to wipe his arm across his face in an attempt to remove the oil, Reeve gestured towards the small washroom tucked into a corner of the garage. 

“I’m going to… get cleaned up before we leave,” he said. “Huxley can you grab my bag for me and hand it to me through the door? I don’t want to get oil on my stuff.”

“Sure thing.”

***

With each passing year that Reeve travelled to Junon before the start of first term, he and Huxley had more company. They had taken to commandeering a corner of the buggy well before they left the grasslands so they could pour over Reeve’s latest assignments from the President or, over the past two summers, letters that Huxley had received from Professor Gast.

He always signed them Gast Faremis, but Huxley was adamant that he’d always know him as Professor Gast, even if he wasn’t heading up the ShinRa Science and Research Division. 

There were more people making the trip from Midgar to Junon now than ever before with Midgar growing exponentially. The cranes continued their slow crawl across the grasslands and the city was always in Reeve’s periphery when he was visiting home in between terms. I looked like the centre of a bicycle wheel, metal spokes sticking out in all directions, soon-to-be the infrastructure for the enter upper city. 

He hoped that he would still be able to help build the city once he was finished with school.

For the first time, the buggy was completely full of passengers. Reeve wondered how many of the kids were going to the Academy and how many of the adults were simply being shuttled from different departments in Shinra. 

He supposed higher-ups had their own, better methods of transport than the Junon-Midgar buggy. 

Huxley had already scouted out their usual corner, although Juney was there as well, peering over his shoulder at the letters. 

“He’s studyin’ the planet? I thought he was working with mako ‘an stuff?” Juney was saying as Reeve walked over to them with a small wave, dirty clothes tucked away in his bag. 

Reeve waved and Huxley smiled back wanly, likely annoyed that Juney was poking into his private business.

“He went ta Cosmo Canyon for a while ta study the stars.”

Huxley was strangely protective over his letters. Even Reeve hadn’t seen all of them — only the ones that Huxley was willing to show. In their few interactions with the man, Professor Gast seemed to have a nervous kind of energy that was only calmed by the presence of his wife, Ifalna, who was softspoken and one of the warmest people that Reeve had ever met. She reminded him of Ma. 

Yet Huxley near-worshipped Professor Gast. He peppered the scientist with questions whenever they had time while visiting Haneul and his family. If Reeve and Haneul were in tow, they would often leave the two to talk and play a game with Ifalna, or go outside and shovel their walkway to make up for Huxley’s intrusion. Reeve could only assume that what he didn’t see of Huxley’s letters was an even more forward discussion of the former division head’s time at ShinRa and what he was studying in Icicle Inn.

Their relationship was the same as his own meetings with the President, Reeve thought. He showed Huxley some of the schematics and drawings, and talked about a few of their discussions but some of them he wanted to keep close and private. 

It was the President, after all.

“When I was your age, I was a simple engineer as well.” President Shinra had said during their final meeting of Year Three. “Well, not really your age, a bit older. You are a prodigious young man.”

Reeve had fought the urge to preen a bit. He could hear Ma’s voice in his head telling him not to be arrogant. 

The President had then leaned forward as if he was able to tell Reeve a personal secret. 

“Hard work will never betray you, Reeve. Just look at myself. I built this company from the ground up from when it was ShinRa Manufacturing! And I’ve heard from your teachers that you’re quite the hard worker.”

Reeve had ducked his head, hiding the proud blush that made its way onto his cheeks. 

“Reeve?” Huxley asked. 

He shook his head violently, realizing that he had been standing in the buggy staring off into space for at least a minute. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Anyway you said something about Cosmo Canyon?”

Huxley waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Ah, ya already knew ‘bout that. I was tellin’ Juney about his research there.”

Reeve looked around, just then noticing that Juney was no longer there. He sat down next to Huxley and smiled. 

“What has Professor Gast been up to lately?”

***

“Why don’ ya use yer handkerchief?” Huxley asked.

Reeve glared at him, shocked that he would suggest something like that. 

“Yea, yea, don’ want ta dirty yer Ma’s stuff,” Huxley teased, handing him a tissue. 

“Dadk you,” Reeve said. Stuffing the tissue into his nostrils, he tipped his head back and sighed. 

“The offer ta read yer blood type fortune is always there.”

Reeve snorted. “Gross.”

Huxley’s voice was soft as he pulled out a small scrap of fabric identical to one of the patterned handkerchiefs that Reeve tucked into his blazer pockets. 

“Thank yer ma fer me. That was really nice of her ta make ‘em fer me an’ Juney.”

“Dod’t worry about it,” Reeve said, sniffling. 

Juney flopped down on the floor in front of the two of them with a flourish, folding her hands across her lap. 

“I was sellin’ some of the snacks I stole from Ma an’ Pa ta those kids over there,” Juney said. “They’re goin’ to the Academy too. Year Ones like me. Made a few gil on the side.”

Huxley groaned. “C’mon Juney, Ma an’ Pa told me ta watch out fer ya. Don’ get inta trouble on the ride over.”

She shrugged and turned to Reeve.

“What happened t’ ya?”

Reeve sniffled again and removed the tissue from his nose. “I get nosebleeds whenever we go through the mountains due to the dry air.”

She pulled a candy bar out of her pocket and without asking, handed it to Huxley who wordlessly accepted it. “Ya do sound posh on purpose don’cha? Jus’ like at the dinner we had.”

“Juney!”

“What?” she asked, glaring at her brother.

“S’okay Reeve don’ listen ta her,” Huxley said, scowling back at Juney. 

Reeve looked down, crumpling the bloody tissue in his hands. He thought about handing it to Huxley as a joke and asking him to tell his fortune after all. 

“My ma always told me to speak properly,” Reeve said after a pause, Juney looking up at him expectantly. “She did the same thing around me growing up so I would learn. I—“ 

He didn’t add the part where He didn’t add the part where it made people take him more seriously, especially since he was younger than all of his classmates and had been excluded from most everything until Haneul had stood up for him in form group. 

Juney hummed in agreement as if he’d finished his thought before looking up at Reeve with a smirk. “She’s not wrong but I like playin’ up my accent. Makes people think less of me an’ then I have the power, not them.”

Reeve hadn’t thought of it that way before. It only confirmed his opinion that Juney was both smart and terrifying. 

“What are you studying at the Academy?”

“Business an’ Administration,” Juney said cheekily. “One of us has ta make money— Hey!”

Reeve laughed as Huxley threw his candy bar wrapper at her.

“Scientists make money!” Huxley said, indignantly. “Especially if they work fer ShinRa.”

“I believe in you Huxley,” Reeve said, tapping his friend lightly on the forehead. “Go forth and become the next Professor Gast.”

Even though they were just kidding around, Reeve felt warmed by Huxley’s appreciative smile.


	13. The Academy (Year 4, Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Reeve shuddered. It didn’t take much to get on Scarlet’s bad side and she hadn’t liked him since he and Haneul had met with the President in Year One. She laughed, covering her mouth for dramatic emphasis._
> 
> _It was a high-pitched cackling sound. Like everything else about her, it was terrifying._
> 
> _He couldn’t help but wonder why someone as nice as the President would want to meet with her._

When Reeve practiced spell casting, he now did it in the Training Centre by himself. He now owned three materia orbs: the initial Cure materia that President Shinra had given him, a Cover materia that he had found randomly in one of his classrooms, and a Chakra material that his father had given him this past summer. 

Reeve hugged the small yellow orb to his chest and breathed deeply. He could almost smell his father — mythril dust and sweat and aftershave — every time he used it. 

Logically, Reeve knew that materia was condensed mako. He didn’t know its exact molecular makeup — he wasn’t even sure if Huxley did — but he knew what it was. People used materia far better than he did without having any idea of what it was. 

It was frustrating. Casting also still gave him headaches, although the nausea and dizziness wasn’t bad unless he tried to cast something he hadn’t before. 

Haneul had flat out laughed when Reeve had found the Cover materia. Reeve knew he wasn’t a fighter, but still bristled at the idea that he wouldn’t be able to protect others in a fight. He had considered dragging Haneul to the Training Centre to test his theory, but Reeve knew that he was the weakest of all of them physically. 

He would probably bet on Huxley being the strongest of them, although Haneul was more skilled. Huxley had also become their strongest magic user over the past year. If they ever got into a fight for any reason he definitely wanted both of them at his side.

Although it was unlikely to ever happen, Reeve also had to acknowledge that he was useless until he started training more, or somehow mastered materia casting better. 

President Shinra had stopped Reeve’s extracurricular materia lessons, but it still bothered Reeve that he couldn’t use it as well as his classmates or friends. 

“Yer jus’ sad ‘cause there’s one thing yer not good at,” Huxley told him over one of their increasingly rare lunches. 

Reeve grinned sheepishly and ducked his head, pantomiming throwing his bread at Huxley from across the table. Huxley wiggled his eyebrows and continued eating some sort of brown stew. While they had waited in line together, Reeve had taken one look at it and opted for a sandwich instead. 

Where other schools would have had several rigourous rounds of standardized testing by Year Four, the ShinRa Academy prided itself on allowing students to draft their own projects. These were supposed to become a stepping stone to narrow their focus for future studies. Year Sevens’ entire school curriculum was tailored to their graduation projects. Year Four’s projects were a prelude to this, an indication of direction so the Academy could adjust classes and professors accordingly. 

At least, that’s what President Shinra had told him when Reeve had asked about it in their latest meeting. 

He had also let Reeve know that ShinRa was willing to support Reeve in all of his projects. The fraying carpet edges of Headmaster Rosario’s office floor swam in front of his vision as Reeve remembered his embarrassment of having to reply that he didn’t know what he wanted to do yet.

The President had assured him that he had a month to figure it out, and again offered his services and support. It made Reeve feel even more ashamed that nothing had immediately jumped to mind. 

“Do you know what you’re going to do for your Year Four project?”

Huxley’s eyes lit up and he quickly finished chewing. “I’ve been talkin’ to Professor Gast about it. He’s gonna help me in researchin’ the Ancients.”

“Really?” Reeve didn’t mean to sound so incredulous, but it sounded like an extension of what Gast Faremis had studied with ShinRa. Despite not knowing as much about it as Huxley, Reeve couldn’t help but push Huxley a bit. 

“Isn’t that what he studied before he left ShinRa?”

“Yea. He doesn’t talk much ‘bout it but I think he found something more when he studied in Cosmo Canyon.”

“What if it’s something bad? He did disappear for a while.”

“If somethin’ happened, it’s over now innit? He lives up by Haneul’s family ’n has a wife ’n everythin’” 

Reeve shrugged. “Yeah I guess you’re right.”

Something still seemed off, but Professor Gast also seemed like a genuinely good person who sometimes reminded Reeve of his own parents. 

“He’s been busier lately though,” Huxley added with a frown. “I dunno maybe he’s doin’ some extra stuff for ShinRa.”

“Wouldn’t that be kind of weird? He left them on purpose.”

Huxley stirred his stew but didn’t move to take a bite before looking up at Reeve thoughtfully. Having abandoned his many theories about Professor Gast’s sudden retirement from ShinRa after they had found the professor alive and well, Huxley hadn’t really thought about it beyond finding Professor Gast. 

“I dunno,” Huxley repeated. “Maybe I’ll ask ‘bout it in my next letter. Maybe he jus’ wants ta live in peace.”

“As long as he’s not using you for research I’m sure it’s fine.”

Huxley scoffed. “He’d not do somethin’ like that.”

Reeve nodded. He didn’t think so either, but it still seemed odd.

***

“Did you ever know Gast Faremis?” Reeve asked the President at their next meeting.

If President Shinra was shocked to hear Reeve ask about it, there was no change in his facial expression or demeanour. Reeve didn’t know why he had expected anything else but the soft smile that the President was giving him currently. 

“Of course. Professor Gast was a wonderful asset to our company,” President Shinra said. “I only wish he had decided to stay with us, but after a few years he wanted to leave and start a family I think. Working in such an esteemed position at this company demands one’s full attention. If there’s any lesson I want you to take from these meetings, it’s that we expect great things from you, Reeve, but these things will require a lot of hard work and effort.”

Reeve nodded vigourously.

The President raised an eyebrow, peering curiously down at Reeve from the headmaster’s desk. “I didn’t know you were so taken with biology, Reeve.”

He said it with the hint of a question.

“Oh, no sir. I mean, biology and engineering are closely related through the existence of mako,” Reeve said hurriedly. “But it’s really that my friend is obsessed with him.”

“Ah, I see,” the President laughed warmly and leaned back in his chair. “Which friend is this again?”

“Huxley Stackpoole.”

“Ah, yes. Mister Stackpoole is one of the top students in his form. And his sister has already made waves, so to speak, in Business Administration.”

Reeve groaned. Before he could think better of it, he asked, “What did Juney do now?”

President Shinra laughed again. It was a loud, booming sound that filled the entire office. “Nothing at all that cannot be honed into something formidable. Miss Stackpoole is already quite the businesswoman.”

“I’ll bet,” Reeve mumbled. Remembering himself, he straightened up in his seat. “I’m sorry for my insolence, sir.”

The President waved his hand through the air breezily and shook his head. “I don’t want us standing at attention here, Reeve, I’m here to help. It’s like I told you before, I used be an engineer myself.”

As the President continued to look at him amicably, Reeve found himself beaming back at him. 

“Thank you.” Reeve paused for a moment. “Also don’t tell Juney I said anything. She might kill me.”

Another laugh followed that warmed Reeve. He felt safe somehow. 

“And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” the President joked. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, Reeve.”

***

A month later, Reeve still didn’t know what he was going to do for his Year Four project. He only had a few days to decide. The President had reassured him in their meeting, but as the giant wooden double doors to Headmaster Rosario’s office closed behind him, Reeve felt embarrassed and frustrated.

“I’ll think of something,” he said aloud. 

Reeve hadn’t taken more than two steps away from the doors when he crashed into something. 

“Oh, it’s you. You should look where you’re going.” 

Scarlet’s voice emphasized “you” as if Reeve was a horrible substance she had found underneath her shoe. 

She wore high heels despite the fact that they were technically not allowed according to the Academy dress code. Reeve looked down at her shoes now, not wanting to draw her full attention. They were a shiny red leather, matching the red bow at the collar of all of the girls’ uniforms. Whenever Scarlet walked through the hallways, they always made an authoritative clicking noise that announced her presence.

“Look, I have no idea why the President is humouring you about whatever it is that you talk about with him,” Scarlet said, sneering at him. “But I’m going to be an executive one day and I’m going to make your life a living hell if you work anywhere within this company, Tuesti”

Reeve shuddered. It didn’t take much to get on Scarlet’s bad side and she hadn’t liked him since he and Haneul had met with the President in Year One. She laughed, covering her mouth for dramatic emphasis. 

It was a high-pitched cackling sound. Like everything else about her, it was terrifying. 

He couldn’t help but wonder why someone as nice as the President would want to meet with her.

***

“Have you considered that maybe he just wants to be alone with his wife?” Haneul asked, interrupting Huxley’s worrying that Professor Gast hadn’t responded to him in a while.

With a small frown, Haneul watched as Huxley knocked over his Bishop with a smile before looking up at Haneul with a conspicuous eyebrow wiggle. Even Reeve looked up wide-eyed, a bit shocked at the question. 

“Not like that! You two are awful.” Haneul scowled at his setup before smirking and moving his rook across the board. 

“I meant that it just seems like they probably didn’t have much time together before that. Also, checkmate.”

“Dunno why I bother at this point. Yer both way ahead of me.” 

Huxley didn’t seem too particularly upset about losing and pulled out an odd-looking candy bar from his pocket. 

“Oh yeah, how’s Juney’s store going?” Reeve asked as he began resetting the board to play against Haneul next. 

Since Juney had set up a side store trading in snacks she had either stolen from her parents or begged them to send to her at the Academy, she had been earning a surprising amount of gil. 

Jobs weren’t technically allowed for Academy students without special permission, but somehow Juney had gone unhindered thus far. It was impressive for a Year One. 

Huxley snorted. 

“She’s goin’ ta make more money now than I will when I graduate.”

Nodding absentmindedly, Reeve gave Haneul a grin, signalling the start of their next game. “Yeah the President said as much.”

“Ah shit, what’d she do now?”

Reeve laughed and moved one of his pawns. “That’s what I said. But it doesn’t sound like she’s doing anything wrong, really. Although I think he might know about her store on the side. I didn’t tell him about it, of course.”

Huxley nodded in appreciation before turning back to Haneul. 

“Talk ta yer brother lately?”

“Which one?”

“The quiet one.”

“Siyoung?”

“Yea that’s ‘im. He talks ta Professor Gast sometimes doesn’ he?”

Haneul sighed. “Look I’m not asking Siyoung to spy on Professor Gast for you.”

“Its’ not spyin’ I jus’ wanna make sure he’s alright!”

“I can talk to Dongil for you if you want,” Reeve said absentmindedly as he moved another pawn forward. Haneul immediately took it out with a knight that Reeve hadn’t accounted for. 

“You talk to Dongil?” Haneul asked.

Reeve nodded. “I’ve written him a few letters. He sent me the schematics for your sled. Sometimes I ask him engineering questions.”

“You ask Dongil questions? Really? He’s pretty much an idiot. And he’s not an engineer.”

“He knows about sleds though. And I want to learn about many machines as possible.” Reeve looked up from the chessboard at Haneul and smiled. He couldn’t help but notice that Haneul’s own smile didn’t fully reach his eyes.


End file.
